With All My Heart
by Imperatia
Summary: Emperor Charles zi Britannia and his most evil son, Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia are sent back in time to year 2009 in order to prepare humanity for the inevitable alien invasion. Each of them is given permission to take 10 other individuals with him. Charles thinks that the aliens may not even be all that bad - compared to his son. Godlike Lelouch, eventual CG/SG crossover.
1. The Tyrant of Hell

_Greetings,_

 _I am Imperatia._

 _This is not the first story that I've written, but its the first which I'm uploading. My idea here is simple. In most time travel stories, Lelouch goes back alone or with C.C. What if Lelouch had to bring his father alongside with him? I'm rather interested in a story, where 1. Charles isn't the enemy, 2. where the Imperial Family is not quite as demonic as Lelouch imagined and 3. where Lelouch is a bit of an asshole with superpowers. :D_

 _This will be an eventual Code Geass/Stargate SG-1 crossover (without an actual SG-1, sorry xD ). If you dislike crossoevers, rest assured that 1. it will take quite some time to get there, 2. In the first part, the story will be mostly CG oriented. In actuallity, this chapter most likely contains the biggest piece of any SG related things for a long time. And 3. When I reach that part, I'll make sure to make the story readable for those who are unfamiliar with SG. I may or may not move into the CG/SG category. If we reach that part, of course._

 _Also, in the near future, hopefully soon, I'll be starting a blog or sth. I'll be starting my own novel there, piece by piece. If my writing style is attractive to you, I may direct you to it, if you like._

 _Update schedule is right now undecided. I hope you like this story._

 _Imperatia_

* * *

It was a boiling hot day when it all began. Lelouch was not particularly surprised when he found out that there was a special place in Hell reserved for Britannian Emperors such as himself as well as other rulers.

It wasn't that this Hell was such a horrible place by itself, the problem was that each person had to come to terms with his own deeds in life, before he could join the rest of the collectives. Meaning, they each had to first be informed for all the horrible consequences of their actions, a process which was usually quite lengthy (except in people such as Euphemia, who passed on soon after Lelouch joined her, since the only thing she needed was to be absolved from her actions by her brother). That wasn't such a problem with Lelouch, since he made efforts in life to learn the painstaking details of just what he had caused, just so he could justify his assisted suicide after Nunnaly was found to still be alive.

Surprisingly, he was welcomed warmly to the World of C by his sister Euphemia, Shirley, Rolo, as well as, to his everlasting surprise, his father, Charles zi Britannia and many of the Imperial family. He was finally forced to acknowledge the fact that they weren't quite as bad as he had previously imagined. Not that it stopped him from playing some rather cruel, but hilarious, "pranks" on some of them, most prominently his father.

Unfortunately, since in the world of C, everyone knew everything or at least most things, the other Britannian Emperors thought they could make short work of him and bring him in line – a hazing if you will. Politics happened even in Hell – who knew? Since he had been quite successful in his, admittedly, rather short reign, they probably thought him a threat (somehow).

Unfortunately for them however, even if Lelouch was actually quite nice as a person (compared to some other rulers at least), was one of the youngest and shortest-reigned Emperors, they still shouldn't have done that, he thought smugly. Oh it worked for a little while, he admitted to himself, but as physical strength played little to no role in the afterlife and the 99th Emperor did not particularly believe in other people's authority, their 'victory' was short-lived.

He had lost his Geass, but gained, in turn, a limited ability to influence reality both in the World of C and outside it. Since it was all about the mind in there, it was no contest. Also, those who were actually capable of stopping him were smart enough to not even try (most notably perhaps his father).

"LELOUCH!" a loud regal voice boomed as Charles zi Britannia stomped across the hall of his imaginary throne room.

Lelouch smirked and looked down at his father's new form, checking his appearance from head to toes.

"Well, father dearest!" Lelouch smiled amusedly. "I didn't know you were into cross-dressing!"

Charles' vein on his head bulged as he glared at his impetuous son. He was dressed into a poorly fitting purple female dress, the likes of which were popular amongst female nobility in the times of Charles' reign.

"Then again, I must congratulate you on finally stepping out of the closet and revealing your true self." He continued in a patronizingly kind voice as his father's eye kept twitching. Lelouch didn't know why he was so against Milly's festivals during his lifetime! This shit was hilarious.

"After all, you can only stop lying to others, if you stop lying to yourself first." Lelouch nodded in an appropriately wise manner as Charles clenched his fists in anger.

"Turn me back, Lelouch!" he demanded loudly from his son.

Lelouch smirked and opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment he heard several footsteps of other people incoming and he looked through the open doors. Those were several other rulers approaching his throne room, all of them wearing their little dresses.

Charles zi Britannia raised his eyebrow imperiously and turned around in his pretty dress to face the crowd of cross-dressers.

Lelouch paled just a little upon seeing how many of them there were and waved his hand. The large double doors closed sharply, hitting the bratty Emperor Archibald bi Britannia (who was at the front and wearing a rather baggy red dress) straight in the forehead, sending him flying straight into Henry VIII, who was wearing one of those blue dresses with the extremely large skirt.

Lelouch and Charles both snorted, but his father proceeded to glare at him as soon as he realised that they were in agreement.

"You know, you could get rid of them if you simply turned us back." The 98th Emperor suggested in a forcibly calm tone. His son smirked and looked at him smugly.

"Now where would be the fun in that?" he asked amusedly as Charles growled at him. It was so hilarious the way he could mess with those so called superior examples of humanity. He smirked as the 'superior beings' started pounding on the door in response to his less than charitable thoughts about them.

'Oh, look at me!' Lelouch thought in an annoying high pitched voice. "I'm so superior to everyone! My bloodline is sooo pure, since I only married my cousins!'

He could have sworn that he heard a few growls as the pounding got louder.

'I'm such a superior person that I can't even get out of my dress by myself!' he continued in his thoughts.

In response he could hear a few shouts of rage. His father kept glaring at him, causing Lelouch to favour him with the most insufferably smug look he could muster. Charles' clenched his fists and he knew that he was imagining strangling him, but that just caused Lelouch to chuckle.

As he tired of the noise, Lelouch moved his hand in an imperious manner and in an instant, the doors opened and the various rulers, both the males in dresses and the females in various ugly male costumes, complete with codpieces and such, fell forwards into the chamber.

They seethed angrily as they got caught in a tangle of limbs and pretty skirts. They even forgot to feel embarrassed for a moment there, but as soon as he thought of it, ugly red blushes seemed to appear on their faces.

Lelouch smiled smugly as they finally managed to untangle themselves and approached his father and him on the throne.

Then the shouts began.

"I'm going to kill you, Lelouch!" Archibald shouted and he was joined by several others.

"Damn you, Lelouch!" seethed Henry the Eight in an appropriately cliché manner.

"Turn us back!" He was pretty sure that was the Sun king.

"Damn you!" Jiang Lihua's uncle shouted.

"Lelouch!" Ah, that was Ricardo von Britannia, the man responsible for the rise of the Holy Britannian Empire.

"You bastard!" An unimportant worthless baron he killed at the beginning of his second rise as Zero.

And so on and so on.

Lelouch waited for them to stop as they approached the throne. Then he smirked at his father.

"Look, father!" he said amusedly. "It's a peasant uprising!"

The crowd got even angrier, but he wasn't finished yet.

"Those must be the unwashed masses that school kept telling me about." He sneered evilly. This got to many of them more than anything else could, as they were mostly very proud of their superiority to the common people.

So they tried reaching him on his throne, to "teach him a lesson" or so they shouted, in a quite frankly pedestrian manner. He thought the last thing with a rather smug look on his face as the enraged kings and queens hit the invisible wall he had put in front of him and were repelled back into the crowd of 'unwashed masses'.

Lelouch laughed hard as they repeated their attempt once more, but grew alarmed as an idea, which originated from one of them spread amongst them.

In an instant, the assault on the invisible wall stopped and his unwashed peasant slaves started smirking. They concentrated really hard, making them look rather constipated, and after some moments, the pompous white emperor outfit he was wearing vanished into thin air, even the kite he was wearing, as 98th Emperor Charles called it, disappeared.

Lelouch glared menacingly down at his father as he dared snort at the thought.

And then his outfit was replaced by a pretty dress. Lelouch looked down at his clothes and made to feel the soft fabric under his fingers as the former rulers cackled in a rather pedestrian manner. He looked at them blankly and made a mirror appear in front of him.

He looked at his reflection for a few moments.

"Well," he commented loudly, cutting through their laughter. "I wear it better than any of you."

He said the words with such insufferable smugness that his brother, Prince Cassius actually started pulling his hair from his head. He watched with the amusement as the so called superior beings, the rulers of the world, started throwing their little temper tantrums against his enlightened rule.

And didn't the phrase 'enlightened rule' just burn them.

It wasn't specifically the words he chose, it was the manner he used them to mercilessly mock his predecessors. It was quite amusing when he had formerly declared himself their god and told them that they had to pay their respects and bow really deeply if they wanted to enter _his_ Hell. Never mind the fact that _he_ was the one entering.

Ah, good times.

Well, it was time to continue. He waved his hand in an imperious manner and the pretty dresses and pirate outfits all reverted to their original appearance with the use of his _superior_ reality altering powers. He put a giant emphasis to the word _superior_ to once again assure them of their lower place in the hierarchy, in comparison to him.

Then he unceremoniously threw them all out.

It was so nice when God owed you favours. He also had the added benefit of the fact that pretty much everyone believed he was the devil, which was nice, as it gave him plenty of added power. It wasn't quite worship, but hate and fear was good enough too.

Charles gave him a dry look. God didn't like him at all. And compared to Lelouch he was pretty much forgotten by everyone.

His father coughed grumpily in order to breach the next topic.

"How is the war going?" he asked, putting the entire embarrassing ordeal behind him (especially as he knew he could do practically nothing about it).

Lelouch frowned. He looked across the hall and a massive screen appeared at the end.

"It's not going well." Lelouch admitted as scenes of knightmare frames being destroyed flashed on the screen, along with different people, including 100th Empress Nunnaly vi Britannia, having strategic meetings and giving orders. Then it showed the invaders, a race of parasitic gods with highly sophisticated technology and massive armies and space ships.

Charles frowned.

"It's an attempt at annihilation. Genocide. " He concluded, looking at the sheer size of the forces which were washing over their world in a massive tide. "They are attempting to purge the planet of all life."

Lelouch nodded. His sisters (Nunnaly and Cornelia) were resisting admirably, along with all their allies, whether they were Asian, European and African.

Allies. The word felt odd in Charles' mind as he looked at the multicultural group at his daughter's military meeting. He had not thought it possible to call countries of the former EU or UFN as allies toward a common cause. Shows what he knew.

The problem wasn't technological supremacy or superior troops or tactics. No. The troops of their world were definitely better trained and their military weaponry was better accustomed to combat than their enemies. There was some technological superiority on the other side, but it was mitigated by their superiority in other factors.

Unfortunately, the sheer size of the enemy army was the real problem.

Once the first few invasions of the individual kings had been defeated, all the parasitic kings had joined together and struck them with an absolutely massive collective invasion.

Schneizel was nonplussed by the situation. Though Lelouch may have once upon a time called him his strategic superior, it showed that both Charles and Lelouch were his superiors when it came to bad odds.

Charles looked at Lelouch's concerned expression. He knew that his 11th son was at his most formidable when he was backed into a corner. In fact, a great deal of his strategy depended on being at a disadvantage.

Schneizel, as Lelouch had once said, only fought battles that he knew he could win. This meant that out of the three strategic masterminds, he was at this moment, the worst choice. Thankfully, with the addition of Cornelia and Nunnaly, a successful resistance was formed. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Black knights were decimated in the previous great war as were the other armies.

Charles cleared his mouth.

"What is it?" demanded the 99th Emperor. His father hesitated.

"... I think, Lelouch, that we had best ask for a time-reversal." He said somewhat uncertainly.

Lelouch's eyes narrowed and he glared in Charles' direction. The elder ignored his urge to squirm with practised ease.

After a while, he looked away.

"That does seem to be the only option at the moment." He admitted in a cold voice. "However, how do I know this isn't you attempting another Ragnarok?"

This was the crux of the matter, Charles knew.

"My time in the collective has made me realize a number of things." Charles began. Lelouch eyed him coldly. "One of those things is that my plan may have been a little foolish."

Lelouch smiled sarcastically.

"Just a tad."

"Regardless," Charles continued. "Even if that is my intention, I doubt you'd allow it."

Lelouch eyed him for a moment and then he nodded.

"I wil-" he began.

"Very well." Interrupted a loud, booming, voice from the top of Lelouch's imaginary palace. Both of the rulers looked up and were met with a deformed face on the ceiling.

"You may attempt this." The deformed face continued. "Each of you may choose up to ten companions, who will accompany you on this task, whether they be living or dead."

Lelouch and Charles looked at each other incredulously.

"Did that really just happen?!" Charles asked in surprise. Lelouch was equally bewildered. Then he smirked.

"Well, since God liked your suggestion, he may not hate you as much anymore." He said.

Then God continued.

"Lelouch vi Britannia will lead the effort and will be given an upgraded version of the reality changing power." He said in a booming voice. "Charles zi Britannia will be given a Code and will support Lelouch's efforts."

Charles was annoyed. The insufferably smug look from earlier returned to his son's face.

"You will be transported back to year 2009, when Lelouch was exiled to Japan."

Now it was Lelouch's turn to be annoyed.

"Select your 20 companions. Your mission is to prepare the world for the goa'uld invasion and then destroy it or insure it never happens."

Then the deformed face disappeared and the two were left in silence.

Charles started pacing and after a few moments he looked at his son. Seeing his face made his annoyance return.

"Your hat looks like a kite." Charles commented snidely. Lelouch glared.

A conveniently placed banana peel caused the 98th Emperor to fall down on his ass in a rather majestic manner.

* * *

Charles: "Impudent writer."

Thank you for reading. Please comment if you like!


	2. The Chosen Ones

_Greetings,_

 _From this moment on, all AN's will be at the back. Also, if you have any questions regarding C and L's choices, ask. But before you do, consider for yourself why the characters have or haven't been chosen._

 _My thanks for reading._

* * *

Oh lists! Such a _joy_ they are, Charles sneered as he had to write down which poor losers he had to bring back with him to 2009 with their memory intact. Those he would choose would instantly become the butt of his son's jokes.

Unfortunately the selection process was actually pretty problematic as he could honestly say he trusted very few people and even that trust was usually conditional. And as God had told him that since those he chose would only get to keep their memory and abilities, they were not in any way obliged to obey him.

"Tch." Charles gritted his teeth as glared at his surroundings. After he'd insulted his son's ridiculous hat, Lelouch had sent him to the corner of his ridiculously large throne room to 'think about what he'd done'. Poor Charles only had a limited grip on the reality changing power, so the only thing he could really do was create a shabby wall between his corner and the rest of the hall.

The wall didn't really even reach the ceiling of the palace.

Lelouch had an advantage here, Charles knew. Charles would lose his Geass, therefore he would need to be a lot more careful about how to move about and what to say and to do if he wanted to keep ruling. There were a lot of potentially useful people he could take with him, but they were either untrustworthy or hated his guts.

Such as: his second son Schneizel and his second daughter Cornelia. They were by far the most capable of his children (excluding Lelouch and Nunnaly apparently), but unfortunately it simply would not do.

He laughed at the thought of trusting Schneizel. That child was a sneaky snake. You could give him a damn pencil and he would use it to plot your overthrow. Lelouch did that too, but he on the other would throw the damn pencil away and tell him that he'd plan his overthrow the way he damn well pleased!

Charles shook his head. Such ungrateful children he had. He then made a note to gift Lelouch a pencil for his birthday, just to see his reaction. And maybe his other children too.

And then there was Cornelia. She probably hated Lelouch more, but he was pretty sure she hated him for his connections to both Geass and V.V. Before Euphemia's death she was most likely the most reliable person he could ask for, always eager to be of service. Such as she was now however, he had absolutely no hope of controlling her, even if Marianne somehow re-inhabited her body. Maybe she'd be more cooperative with Euphemia still alive, but she'd definitely start plotting against both of the Emperors as soon as she was able.

He wouldn't bother with any other of his children. He had briefly considered Marrybell, but ultimately rejected it because she couldn't do much in her anti-terrorist group anyway. At least not for his purposes.

He sighed. Well, maybe it'd be best to start with those he actually _did_ want to have accompany him.

Bismarck Waldstein, his Knight of One and his wife, Marianne were a no-brainer. The only problem was that he'd have to ask Lelouch to repair his wife's body and reconnect her mind to it again and that would no doubt delay it until he returned back to Britannia, whenever the hell that would be. There was also the minor detail that his 11th son absolutely hated her guts. Last time he saw her, she tried apologizing and he threw her in the sewer.

He drew himself up to his full impressive height and drew a deep breath. He paced in his 'generously' awarded corner for a few moments.

He then considered his other knights of round and finally, after much deliberation, wrote down two other names.

This was hard, he thought. He completely understood why the 99th Emperor enslaved most of the nobles.

After a while, he changed his perspective and considered that he didn't have to limit himself to people who were of strategic importance. There were also those people for whom it would prove practical if they knew as much as possible, to make all their lives easier. With this consideration in mind, he could scrounge up four more names, the final of them being the Head of the OSI. The people chosen were also the kind that would realise what was at stake and wouldn't waste their time plotting or antagonizing Lelouch.

He grunted. Now he really was out of ideas, so finally he wrote two other names. One of them was C.C. and the other was Ricardo von Britannia. God did say they could be either alive _or_ _dead_ , he didn't even give any limitations as to how long. Ricardo has been in the World of C for a while now and would be fountain of helpful advice, more importantly it would give Lelouch an additional target he could torture and maybe the boy would then leave Charles alone. One could always hope.

And C.C. Well, anything was better than that arrogant meddler, V.V. He had long lost all the love he had previously possessed for his elder brother. He didn't have any illusions that she would obey him, she had sided with Lelouch after all and had later been his unofficial Empress. So, C.C. would of course listen to his son much more than she would listen to him, but she _would_ be helpful in making his son see the merit of any advice he would give.

He rolled his eyes as he realised that C.C. would most likely be on Lelouch's list as well, but he really couldn't be bothered to think of another name.

The power of Geass would make you lonely indeed. Well, on the bright side, at least he wasn't V.V. who only had himself. The little idiot accepted a Code so soon that he couldn't even talk to adults in society outside the Directorate.

He briefly compared V.V. to Lelouch, but ultimately decided that Lelouch wouldn't go around killing any of Nunnaly's husbands any time soon out of jealousy. It was a sad state of affairs when his treasonous adolescent son was more mature and reasonable than his 70-year old brother.

After checking his list again after re-reading it for eleventh time, he concentrated on the wall and caused a run-down door to appear. Upon appearing, the door immediately fell down from its hinges.

He glared at the ceiling. God _really_ hated him, the impudent fool.

He walked majestically, with his head raised high, across the massive throne room, as was befitting a Holy Britannian Emperor. If this were mortal life, it'd probably take him at least twenty minutes to cross it, as it really was that ridiculously large.

"So, are you done?" his son asked imperiously from his throne.

"Yes." Charles nodded firmly. "I believe it would be a good idea to exchange our lists."

Lelouch looked at him for a moment and then stood up from his throne. He took out his list.

Charles snorted as Lelouch dramatically walked down the stairs in an unnecessarily slow manner, his steps echoing loudly through the entire hall.

Whoever considered Clovis the most flamboyant of his sons obviously didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Anyone sufficiently informed (very few admittedly) would know that, apart from being a pretty vicious little bastard, Lelouch was also the biggest drama queen around.

The 99th Emperor glared at him.

Charles smirked at him, but knew it was best that he stopped whilst still ahead, so as a distraction and a peace offering he pushed his paper to him.

Lelouch accepted it and gave him his little red notebook. The 98th Emperor took it gingerly, noting the innocent looking thing that his son used to record his diabolical little plans in.

He opened the notebook and looked over the list. He whistled, noticing that it included some rather impressive people.

The former Knight of Seven, Kururugi Suzaku had been of course expected, along with C.C, Gottward and that strange maid of his, all objectively good choices. He also noted with some amusement that his son had pre-emptively stolen two of Schneizel's pet scientists.

He couldn't for the life of him discover what good Euphemia would be for, so he ignored her name for the moment.

The three other names were surprisingly bold though, fitting for someone who had the guts to take on an empire spanning a third of the world. His red-haired Ace, his little sister and the former UFN chairman.

Charles, admittedly, would have personally taken Li Xingke instead of the chairman, as the man seemed ruthless and pragmatic enough to follow their lead, but he could see the merit of her inclusion as those same characteristics also meant that the man might betray them for the very same reasons.

Charles took his eyes away from the notebook and noted that Lelouch was staring at him contemplatively.

"You wrote down C.C.?" Lelouch asked with an odd expression.

The Emperor shrugged elegantly.

"I would like her, if possible, to continue leading the Directorate once V.V. has been dealt with." He admitted to his son.

Lelouch narrowed his eyes at him.

"And what makes you think that I will allow the Directorate to exist after V.V.'s death?" he asked dangerously.

Charles sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

"I'm sure even one such as yourself, Lelouch, can see the merit of additional research into Geass and the Thought Elevator." He answered calmly. Lelouch opened his mouth to reprimand him, but Charles quickly continued. "When C.C. was still in charge, the Directorate was a very different place."

Lelouch studied his face for a moment.

"How so?" he finally prodded.

"It was V.V. who turned the Directorate into a kidnapping station and human experimentation facility." His father obliged him. He took on a sour expression. "At first, V.V. ideas seemed to have merit and were somewhat benign, but then he turned into a vicious little tyrant and started to play god."

He took a deep breath and looked sternly at his son.

"V.V. also started interfering in Imperial affairs, well outside of his jurisdiction." He continued. "He did numerous assassinations using Rolo and other assassins of his and made a general nuisance of himself."

"His actions did more harm than good and forced the OSI to take excessive clean-up operations. If he had just stuck to the Directorate and refrained from _helping_ me," Charles sneered in annoyance. "I wouldn't have had to deal with the numerous scandals and outrage that the bastard had caused me."

He shook his head in disgust. Lelouch looked at him in puzzlement.

"I thought you were angry with him because he killed your wife." His son asked, refusing to refer to Marianne as mother. Charles gazed at him drily.

"That was the point when I started considering him an enemy. Before then he was just an overbearing older brother."

"Oh." Lelouch said quietly, not quite knowing how to respond.

"Yes. _Oh_." Charles sneered.

Lelouch ignored the sarcastic response and returned his list back to him.

"Interesting choice with Ricardo though." He said. "I thought you had other people you wanted with you."

Charles looked at him somewhat oddly.

"Lelouch, I think that for your status as a royal," Charles answered. "You have an exceptionally long list of trustworthy people."

"Look at Schneizel, he only has his pet noble, Kanon. Cornelia had her knights, as well as Euphemia and Nonette. Though there are many we might entrust with specific tasks, there are but few on whom we would really rely."

Lelouch didn't respond, but then again he didn't expect him to. Charles returned the notebook back to his son.

"Since I've chosen C.C.," the 98th Emperor told him. "You may choose another companion."

Lelouch accepted the notebook with a thoughtful expression. After a while he wrote down another name.

Charles raised his eyebrow imperiously.

"Well, who is it?" he demanded. The 99th Emperor rolled his eyes and turned around the notebook so he could see.

As soon as he saw the new addition, Charles snorted. Lelouch glared at him.

"I'm not judging you, son." His father raised his arms defensively. The son's eyes narrowed. "In fact I'm somewhat proud of you for inheriting my philandering ways."

Lelouch sneered at him.

"She's been pestering me to include her on the list ever since God showed up." The 99th Emperor spat. He glared at the ceiling. "I really didn't want her to keep the memories of what she went through because of me."

Charles zi Britannia felt awkward, for the first time in long while.

Lelouch sighed tiredly.

"She and Euphemia are both the same, so _nice_ and _kind_ , despite the fact that their association with me had cost them everything." He ranted. "Hell, I even killed Euphemia myself _after_ I managed to completely destroy her dream."

There was a long silence and Charles felt the incredibly sober mood.

"Still," Charles said cautiously. "Don't stop at just three. Or I will be seriously disappointed in you, my son."

And then he was promptly hit in the face by a potted plant.

* * *

The lists:

 **98** **th** **Holy Britannian Emperor, Charles zi Britannia**

Knight of One, Bismarck Waldstein

Empress Consort, Marianne vi Britannia

Knight of Twelve, Monica Krushevsky

Knight of Four, Dorothea Ernst

Head of the Imperial Household, Walter Smerks

Grandmaster of the Knights of St. Darwin, Reynald Brent

First Lord of the House of Lords, Tybald Whitefel

Head of the OSI, Beatrice Holt

Nth Holy Britannian Emperor, Ricardo von Britannia

Former Head of the Directorate, C.C.

 **99** **th** **Holy Britannian Emperor, Lelouch vi Britannia**

Knight of Zero, Kururugi Suzaku

Leader of Zero Squad, Kallen Kozouki-Stadtfelt

Empress Consort, C.C.

100th Holy Britannian Empress, Nunnaly vi Britannia

Orange-boy, Jeremiah Gottward

Super-maid, Shinozaki Sayoko

3rd Princess, Euphemia li Britannia

Chairman of the UFN, Kaguya Sumeragi

Scientist, Lloyd Asplund

Scientist, Cécile Croomy

Shirley Fennete

* * *

 **AN**

 _The names you don't recognize are obviously OC's. They probably won't play a huge rule in the story. If you wish to ask why a specific character has been chosen or has not been chosen, please do so. If you have your own theory about it, you're welcome to mention it. It is of course possible that I've unjustly ignored someone, but I think my list is pretty well thought out for my purposes. If you have an appropriate title for Shirley, please mention it - she seems somewhat lonely, being the only one on the list without one.  
_

 _I have a few points to answer from the reviews. According to one LOLeouch I'm somewhat repetitive in the use of my words. Sorry about that. I shall try to refrain from it, but feel free to warn me if it becomes a problem._

 _Also, the reviewer with the creative name of Guest has pointed out that both Emperors, with 10 companions each, may be overpowered. I'm aware of the risk, though I'm confident enough in my writing, that I feel I'll be able to write overpowered people and still keep it interesting. Altrough I should note that most time-travel fanfiction actually allows LL to awaken the memory of an unlimited ammount of people._

 _As the story will be a lot about politics, economics and such and not so much about fighting (though it will happen), I don't think it will prove to be a problem. After I have passed the Earth phase, they probably won't feel overpowered anymore, at all. Even if Lelouch will have a lot of questionable superpowers. Feel free to propose some for him! xD_

 _Thank you for reading and reviewing,_

 _Imperatia_

 _p.s.: Also, I should probably warn that the only thing I know is the Code Geass series R1 and R2. I've watched Akito, but don't remember much. Most of the material will be from R1 and R2._


	3. Charlie's Angels

_Greetings._

 _I should probably mention I own neither CG nor SG. I'm sure you must be terribly surprised._

 _Also, I watched a R3 promo. Shinkiro with energy wings FTW!_

* * *

Zero was met with a sorry site as he drove his half-destroyed knightmare frame across what once had been a sprawling European citadel. Unfortunately, what was left of the once opulent example of European craftsmanship was very little indeed.

The Shinkiro Rei, which had after the Great War been rebuilt as an improvement on the first Shinkiro, was missing an arm. It also looked like it had been put through a wringer. The black and gold paint on the iconic machine had been scratched thoroughly and the frame looked beat-up enough that one could mistake it for being the same colour as the Gareth.

Its pilot unfortunately didn't look all that much better. The suit of the infamous Zero had been thoroughly dirtied and the legendary mask was scratched and bloodied.

If one could see through the mask and the closes, they would note that his physical body looked equally battered as the rest.

The pilot however, at this moment did not feel any sign of fatigue. As he drove through the ruined city, littered with ruins, crashed ships and knightmares, the pilot pushed his body to and past all its physical limits.

With one simple motivation.

To find a sign, something, _anything_ that would indicate to him that his assumption was incorrect. The assumption, that all of his remaining friends were now dead.

He swallowed the painful lump in his throat and used his left hand to wipe the tears that just wouldn't stop falling.

He snorted. He thought that after Lelouch's death, he would never cry again.

How wrong he was.

He clenched his right fist and forcefully hit the console, as if _it_ had been responsible for all that happened. He forced himself to calm down and drove ever forward.

He ignored the ruined landscape, looking for a very special ship. Specifically, the Ikaruga, the repaired and upgraded version of the ship with which the Black Knights had once opposed the Demon Emperor. He knew the ship had crashed somewhere close-by.

Because nowhere on the ground was particularly safe, that particular ship had been used as a command centre of sorts. Unfortunately, that also meant that the most important world leaders as well as Suzaku's friends were on board.

Finally, he saw it. He stopped the Shinkiro abruptly and deactivated the powerful energy wings of his machine. He gulped as he viewed its state in undisguised horror and fear. He gripped both armrests of his throne-like pilot chair with a vicious grip to stop the shaking of his hands.

Then, he took a shaky gulp of breath and forced himself to calm down.

Though the armed flotilla looked rather ravaged and had many holes in its armour as well as a huge dent in the middle of its top armour, Zero reminded himself that all was not necessarily lost. Even though the battleship seemed to be broken in several parts.

He couldn't be too greedy or too hopeful, Zero knew. But still, he would be eternally grateful if even just one of them was still okay.

He shook his head and cleared his thoughts, knowing that he had no time to waste.

'Stop being so damn emotional and focus on the damn objective!' he could hear Lelouch's harsh voice yelling in his mind. He would glare at him from his throne and make some sort of a grandiose gesture, which would of course be entirely unnecessary. And where was Lelouch, there was always also C.C.

'Stop moping, boy, and get to work!' she would say in her usual condescending manner. Optionally, she would be sprawled across the sofa and would have some remains of tomato sauce on her face. With white boxes, each one of them bearing the logo of Pizza Hut stacked in a hazardous manner one a top of each other.

At least she was still going to be alive, no matter what. Happy thoughts, right?

He unsheathed one of his swords and made his way to the top of the Ikaruga, making exceedingly gentle steps with the machine in order to insure that he didn't accidentally damage anyone who was still alive further.

He used his sword to cut into the powerful armour of the airship. Despite the urgency, he did this slowly and carefully, to avoid even the slightest chance of accidentally wounding anyone. The chain-sword would cut through meat and bones as easily as it were paper.

Finally, when he had cut a rectangular shape, he picked it up with his knightmare's powerful arms. He forced himself not to look as he cleared the rest of the flotilla's armour and threw it away from the ship. He worked systematically and carefully, with sweat dripping down from his face. Not from exhaustion, but from sheer nervousness.

There was probably a method, which would have allowed him to rescue his friends faster and safer, but he didn't know of it.

Then and only then did he allow himself to look more carefully at the interior. His hand shook a little as he noticed all the blood, which surrounded the bodies. He forcibly turned his attention away from them and drove his knightmare slightly away from the crash site, in order to put it into a safe place so he could check on how many of his friends and allies could still be saved.

After he had parked his machine, he made his way, on foot to search the Ikaruga. As he climbed his way on top of the battleship, the first thing he noted among the ruined interior was that there were many more people there than they were supposed to be.

The command room was literally packed with bodies, which confused him as only the command staff was usually allowed into the room. He blinked in confusion, but ignored that little tilbit.

He jumped down into the room as soon as he had discovered a free spot.

Then, with great reluctance and swallowing a lump in his throat, he made to check if anyone was still alive. Since everyone looked so completely still and lifeless, he was understandably afraid of what he was going to find. The bodies were haphazardly strewn over each other, as if someone had tried to throw them all on a pile, but did not have a particularly good aim.

Rakshata was the closest to his position. The Indian scientist lay there unmoving, with her limbs in what looked a rather unnatural and painful position. There was a small pool of blood underneath her head, which seemed to indicate that she had, at the very least, hid her head rather hard.

He swallowed. Then, he took off the black gloves, which had been part of his regular attire since Lelouch's death, and used two fingers to check her pulse.

A steady trump answered his inquiry. Zero left his fingers in that position for a moment.

When he made his way to check the others, he nearly fell over from the sense of almost delirious happiness he felt.

One of them, Rakshata, was still alive.

After a few more attempts, his sense of euphoria grew exponentially.

Later, it was replaced by a growing sense of confusion. Everyone he had checked, _everyone_ , still had a pulse.

Many of them looked like they had so much blood underneath them that you could drown a person in it, if you wanted. Everyone was still alive and everyone was still breathing. He had checked.

Finally, after checking several of his friends, including Nunnaly, Kaguya and Kallen as well as many other people, he concluded that everyone, _everyone,_ on the Ikaruga was still alive and well.

He frowned. This had to be a miracle.

* * *

And a miracle it was. Suzaku was indeed correct about his conclusion. Lelouch had, after seeing the Ikaruga's crash, pulled everyone into the main command room. He then granted each of them a temporary Code and softened the airship's crash.

After he had determined that everyone would live, he took the Codes back.

He frowned. The time had come for him to form a few contracts.

He stood up abruptly from his throne.

Charles, who had been watching the development with his son, looked at him in puzzlement. He was standing next to his son's majestic throne and had in silence observed his son's actions.

"What are you doing?" he asked him with an odd tone. Lelouch turned elegantly to the side and looked at his father's flummoxed expression.

"I'm going to ask them if they want to follow the plan." He told his father as if he was explaining something completely obvious.

His father's eyes widened and he looked at his son, alarmed.

"What?!" he boomed in a loud voice as he glared sternly at his son. "But everything has already been decided! God has ordered us to proceed!"

Lelouch turned around fully in order to face his father and looked at him with a rather vicious glare.

"Forcing your way on others is _your_ way of doing things." His son told him in an icily cold voice. "I am going to offer them a choice."

He then turned away from his father and started walking down the stairs.

"And if they refuse?!" Charles roared at him furiously, unable to comprehend his son's foolishness. Lelouch stopped.

"Then," he said slowly, exhaling. "Then, we'll help them as they are now. If they don't want a time-reversal, we'll just help them however we can, in their ruined world."

Charles gritted his teeth in anger and glared at his son's back as he dematerialised into dust.

"Foolish brat." He spat tiredly when Lelouch left. He exhaled and turned towards the throne.

He sat down and gripped the arm-rests. He figured that since his son had already left and there was no point in trying to change that bull's mind, he should get his own show rolling.

"God." He boomed loudly and glared imperiously at the ceiling. "I have made my choices. I would like to call upon my companions."

He half expected lightning to strike him in response, but figures slowly started appearing.

The first was Bismarck, the man he had trusted enough to make him his Knight of One. A man with greying long hair and light blue eyes. A man both formidable in battle and wise enough not to seek it, he was at that time the ideal choice to make. And he had every bit of the appearance of the most-powerful warrior in the Empire.

Many had dreamt of attaining his prized position, including formidable men such as Gottward and Kururugi, but that title had, in his mind, belonged only to him.

His faithful knight approached the throne and knelt on one knee.

"Your Majesty." He said respectfully.

Charles nodded at him, happy to see him once again.

Then, out of the mist, two more figures appeared, two more knights.

One of them possessed hair, black like the night, as well as dark skin, unusual for a person of such high status. Her skin was contrasted beautifully with startling green eyes, giving her an appearance both beautiful and exotic. While many may have disagreed, Charles had never held her ancestry against her. She was a knight truly worthy of its name, courageous, noble and strong. While the Knights of Round may have included a man such as Luciano Bradley, she was truly deserving of being called a hero.

Alongside her walked another, her appearance a stark contrast to her exotic-looking friend. She had straight blonde hair, which shined brightly and was tied into two pigtails at the front, along with blue eyes. She looked fairly unremarkable for a knight, but that was just the outward manifestation of her personality. She was discreet and a woman of quiet competence, which went in stark contrast with men such as Bradley and Weinberg. Her meteoric rise in the military had naturally caused her inclusion in his knightly order and ultimately, the position of Captain of the Royal Guard.

Both of them approached the throne and knelt on one knee.

"Your Majesty." They said in unison and he gave each of them a measured nod.

Then, four others appeared.

The first was an old man, in all appearance unremarkable. The man had short greying hair and a moustache and of a gentle appearance. He had an uncanny attention to detail, which was possessed by a very few and which allowed him to competently and efficiently run the most opulent household of the world. He was a man, who anticipated your needs before you had them. A man, who knew everyone's habits and could therefore serve them accordingly, and a man, who from the shadows made sure that everything worked just the way it was supposed to.

The second was a man, who was almost as tall as Charles himself. He walked with unrestrained pride towards his lord's throne. And he was most certainly one who could afford to be proud in his presence. He looked to be right in the middle as far as age was concerned and his shining brown mane afforded him a very impressive appearance. He was the leader of a knightly order which had in the past defended Pendragon from all possible threat. He was a man so remarkable for his fanatical loyalty to Charles, much like Gottward was to Lelouch, that he was one of the first to be eliminated in his son's bid for the throne, even before the public broadcast where he had made his declaration.

The third was another old man, with hair as white as the snow and striking blue eyes, which had in the past convinced many a female into his bedchamber. Despite his obvious age, he still looked as spry and energetic as he had always been which was just the image that Charles had desired for his personal voice in the Imperial Parliament. Given his long and frequent absences, this man was essential to convincing the world that the Emperor was still present in its affairs. A loyal friend beforehand, this man had served loyally, and without asking too many questions.

The final was a woman of a very stern appearance. Her somewhat young face was contrasted by the authority afforded by her heavy framed glasses and her sharp and authorative demeanour. Her dark brown hair, which was tied in a ponytail and pale skin added to that impression ever more so. She was one of the few people who matched his regal demeanour and she was a woman capable of reducing people to silence with a single glare. This was appropriate, as she was the woman in charge of protecting Britannia from the shadows, as well as attacking her enemies in much the same way.

"Your Majesty." The four of them knelt and greeted the 98th Emperor and he acknowledged their greeting.

Then came the one who came before him. It was his predecessor and the founder of the Holy Britannian Empire. He was rather tall, but not anywhere as tall as the 98th Emperor. He however still projected unbreakable strength with his appearance, his muscles giving him the appearance of a powerful warrior. His face gave the appearance of a timeless Adonis, only somewhat tempered by a few wrinkles in his appearance. He knew that the first one had died older, but it seemed that his ancestor chose to remember himself as he was in his prime. It also explained somewhat why so many of his sons, Lelouch and Schneizel included, happened to be so damn pretty.

He did not kneel, but then again nobody had expected him to. He did take a deep bow however.

"I will help you to the best of my abilities, Emperor Charles." He told him in a deep, raspy voice.

Charles nodded in approval.

And lastly, it was her. Charles knew that, objectively speaking, she was not the most beautiful woman in the world. There were others still, who could be perhaps described as better looking, such as a few of his other consorts and females of more exotic appearance, such as his Knight of Four. However, in his eyes, her black was more beautiful than any other and her violet eyes, full of mischief, were more exotic than any other. Charles didn't know if a man could love more than one woman, for in his eyes no other had ever even approached Marianne's place in his heart.

His beloved wife strode regally towards the throne, but with a mischievous and kind smile on her face. This unique smile had separated her immediately from all the others, as even his more tolerable other consorts had never dared to be so casual in his presence.

Her regal and imperious manner gave rise to rumours that she had formerly been part of the French nobility. These tales were started by those, who were assured of the nobles' superiority and yet fawned like rabid fans over his wife.

Finally she stopped before the throne. She didn't kneel and neither did she bow. If anyone would have called her out on it, Charles would probably have thrown them in one of his cells for a couple of days. Of course, nobody in the gathered crowd would have said something like that, as none of them had anything but the highest respect for the Empress.

She gave a small curtsy and then continued up the stairs towards her husband.

"I love you, darling." She cooed at him and gave him a one armed hug and a small chaste kiss on the check, as was appropriate in polite company.

Charles didn't respond to her words. He never did. But then again, was any response really necessary?

Marianne released him and stepped to the side of his throne.

"We're still missing someone, aren't we?" she asked whimsically from his side. He smirked somewhat at her cheeky action. Nobody had dared talk this way in his presence for a long while now. Well, except for Lelouch, but he was more casually insulting than simply casual.

"C.C." he confirmed in his booming voice. Marianne grinned at his response.

As soon as he had said it, the last figure appeared. She was a woman both so annoying and infuriating that she could make a man attempt to pull out all his hair with but a single look. He could just picture the way her 'torture' at the hands of Clovis had looked like.

She was completely apathetic to pain and most other things. The way she told him, she had first avoided pain and experienced it the way all the others did. Then, for a short time, she was seeking it and revelling in it, enjoying it. Now it simply bored her.

So he could just imagine her responding to being tortured with a sarcastic 'ow'.

He knew from Clovis that he had attempted to extract information from her about the origins of her immortality. She had looked at him with her apathetic look, with just a dash condescendence and like she thought that he was a particularly unintelligent monkey.

"Who knows." She would respond casually to his inquiry and in such a dismissive way that it took Clovis three days to stop his temper tantrum.

The apathetic immortal crashed into the floor before his throne and took a long, desperate breath, like she was starved for breath. This was actually true in this case, as she had happened to die several times from lack of oxygen as she was trapped under some building's ruins.

Marianne looked at her in concern.

"C.C.?" she asked her worriedly, but the woman seemed to collect herself pretty fast from her condition by taking several deep breaths.

The immortal's eyes widened somewhat as she looked around and saw all of them.

"What's with all the dead people?" she asked in a bored and condescending tone as soon as she managed to school her expression.

Charles threw her an annoyed look, but Marianne giggled like schoolgirl. Fortunately, his wife knew just how to deal with the lime-haired woman.

"Oh, no you don't!" The Empress told the immortal, laughter present in her voice. "I saw you gaping for a moment there! You looked just like this!"

And then his wife made an exaggerated expression of C.C. gaping face, causing the immortal to show the second sign of emotions and throw her a somewhat irritated look.

"Whatever." She said dismissively. "Where is Lelouch?"

"Already looking for my little boy, are you?" Marianne asked in amusement.

C.C. smirked at her, causing her expression to falter for a moment.

"He happens to be rather good in bed." She told her whimsically, causing his wife to take a rather deep breath. "I doubt _you're_ any good."

There was a bunch of scandalised gasps at her response and Charles smacked his forehead, already regretting including her.

His wife however simply laughed at her.

"Oh, you cheeky little thing, you!"

* * *

 **AN:**

 _And this it for this time. I hope you liked this story so far. My apologies for not including Lelouch's minions in this chapter, but that part will be included in the next one._

 _Don't worry about romance taking too big a part. I'm not a particular fan of it anyway. Unfortunately, romance usually has the tendency of slowing a story down to a crawl if an author put too much emphasis on it. I'll be trying to avoid that. Even so, I hope short little inclusions like the part with Marianne will satisfy those who feel are romantics at heart. If you haven't realised it yet, then I inform you that there will obviously be no slash in this story. If feel like it's terribly overdone. In every fandom, every character is always made out to be gay, somehow, despite all indication otherwise. Lelouch seems pretty straight, as do the others. Nina is the only exception, except for maybe Schneizel and Kanon._ _ **Maybe**_ _._

 _This has no bearing on the story, but I personally am somewhat amused by all the dramatics surrounding Trump. They give the appearence that he's about to start WWIII. Personally, I'm not so much worried about that (though nothing is of course impossible). What I'm more worried about personally is the economic ruin his destructive and self-contradictory economic policy ideas may potentionally bring. It seems to me that he wants to be both Roosevelt and Reagan at the same time. As someone with an informed opinion on economic theory, this makes me cringe hard. But, as I said, this has no bearing on the story, so I'll stop here. I'm sure the media does quite enough to rape your eyes and ears with this topic._

 _Please suggest any ideas for Lelouch's powers. If you think of anything useful, then write it down. It could be a game glitch, a certain game/movie superpower, something completely stupid, but hilarious. I hope I've answered your questions about character inclusions sufficiently in the PM's. I won't declare any pairing, as things like cluclu, kalu and such make me want to claw my eyes out. All will be revealed in time, though don't expect any character inclusion polls or major all-female-character in the story harems for LL in any case._

 _I'm very tempted to delete that part about lady Trumpette, but I suppose I'll leave it for posterity's sake. My apologies._

 _I hope you like the story though. Please review if you have the time and will._

 _Imperatia_

 _Edit: I've just created a blog on wordpress. It's not in a very good shape, but I've uploaded my first little thing on it. It's a little something I wrote for a friend. It's called The Evil Chair Conspiracy and basically blames chairs for everything bad that has ever happened in the history of ever. Should you be interested, it is at imperatia () wordpress () com  
_

 _I'm sure the managements of FFnet could be somehow made to see the reason why it would be a good idea to allow links. They would need to first posess working brains however._


	4. Gathering Minions of Hell

_Greetings,_

 _Just a bit of Lelouch being a drama queen and doing magic tricks.  
_

 _Oh, just read and you'll see!_

 _Also, my story about evil chairs, which brainwash people and are guilty for all humanity's wars (on blog). Also, we've passed 2000 views and 1000 visitors on this story. Very nice, guys.  
_

* * *

There was still some trace of euphoria in the air, Zero thought, as he watched the three of his friends which had managed to wake up make their way down some ruins. .

The rest of the people on the Ikaruga were still dead to the world, although, thankfully their bodies were still living. They had a pulse and they were breathing, but they weren't moving. It was eerie the way they simple lay there, strewn all over the command room, with their limbs in awkward looking positions.

He forcefully turned his attention away from them and climbed down from the ruined airship.

Kallen Kozouki or Stadtfelt, depending on what company she was in, signed tiredly as she finally put Nunnaly down and sat her gently next to a rather large part of what used to be the wall of some building. Normally, she wouldn't have been so tired and she would have been in her personal knightmare, however her beloved machine had actually been destroyed recently after she had pulled a rather reckless stunt against the enemy.

"Sorry Kallen." Nunnaly apologised to her, angry at herself for putting more strain on her already tired friend.

The red-haired ace however smiled slightly and waved her hand dismissively. Then she crashed down next to her former leader's little sister and signed contentedly for a moment. She didn't even know what she was doing here, as she was pretty sure she was supposed to be dying trapped under her crashed knightmare, but she put that out of her mind for the moment.

They both looked for both of their other friends.

Suzaku Kururugi or Zero, as he was now called, came down slowly from their ruined transport. He didn't seem to be in a very good shape as he walked slowly and his mask looked like it had taken a beating. His clothes didn't look too good either. At least he didn't seem to be wounded.

Kallen usually felt a great annoyance every time she saw that outfit, especially given who was _supposed_ to be in there. She knew Suzaku was doing his best and had been rather successful until the invasion had happened, but everything about him in a Zero costume felt wrong. The new Zero moved entirely wrongly, spoke entirely wrongly. Zero was all about grandiose gestures, over the top dramatics and insane and convoluted plans. At least that was what Zero had been to her, so the new Zero was entirely too lacklustre. Even if he was less helpless on the battlefield.

Nunnaly could only smile sadly as she watched her oldest friend make his way down to them. After an all too short, but nice, period of peace in which she ruled, she had been thrown back into the horrendous reality of war by the appearance of the goa'uld. Unfortunately, that was a moment when the death of her brother and her father had proven to be the most painful misfortune for the world.

Schneizel had tried and he was successful in fighting the enemy for as long the lords attacked individually, but as more and more enemy troops and ships grouped together, her eldest surviving brother's suggestions became increasingly useless. He had never experienced fighting a much superior enemy with a severe handicap and it showed. They also had next to no information about their enemy. It became most apparent when he had actually suggested to Zero to attempt to negotiate a surrender. She knew he was under Geass therefore that must have been the limit of his capabilities.

Not that she or anyone else had any really good ideas.

Some had actually started blaming the Demon Emperor for gutting a significant portion of the World's military, like her friend Kaguya, but she had been unable to do so. Firstly, she knew her brother's intentions and secondly, she imagined that the resistance would actually have been even more powerless in a divided world, even if their military strength would have been better.

Speaking of Kaguya, the former chairman of the UFN stood quite a way away from them, staring at the distant silhouettes of enemy pyramid ships which were continuously firing what looked like laser beams.

Zero looked in concern at her form as she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in impotent anger, knowing that there was nothing that she could do at the current moment. He didn't dare saying anything, as she appeared for all intents and purposes to hate both him and his deceased Emperor.

Which all of the other three found curious as Kallen had seen her crying on his death, so it wasn't like she hadn't realised the truth of the matter.

"This is a disaster." Kaguya finally spoke after a long moment of silence, her every word revealing her fury. She was turned away from all of the others, but if anyone were to be able to see, they would see angry tears flowing down her cheeks as she looked helplessly at the carnage.

"I thought we were beating them back." She cried silently in her frustration as she gripped her hair with both of her hands. "And then more of them came and replaced the ones we killed!"

"There really seems to be no end to them." Kallen sighed. It was a classic, if rather disgusting tactic. Human wave tactics. The enemy had millions upon millions of troops and also didn't care one whiff as to how many of them died.

"We don't even know how many reserves they still have." Suzaku, or rather Zero, spat tiredly. "As far as we know, they could control hundreds of planets."

"I wish Lelouch was here." Nunnaly said wistfully after a moment of contemplation. It seemed to be an entirely spontaneous thing as she covered her mouth immediately after and looked somewhat fearfully at her Japanese friend. It wasn't as if she thought the other two, Suzaku and Kallen, would disagree with her, the dark-haired politician however seemed to react angrily to any mention of her brother, in contrast to her generally easy-going manner.

Mt. Kaguya fortunately, it seemed, was not destined to erupt today. The former chairman only sighed as she turned around with a rather saddened expression. Nunnaly knew that her sadness was not in any way meant for Lelouch, but rather for her.

"I doubt even Lelouch could do something at this point." She said as she shook her hand.

She approached her two female friends and sat down next to them, with Nunnaly being in the middle. She felt equally as tired as the others. Despite the fact that she hadn't actually fought on the battlefield, she was no less tired. Fruitless strategy meetings were not particularly relaxing for the body – Who knew?

They seemed to sit there (or stand, in Zero's case) for a long while.

"I wish we could do something about this." Zero spoke after a while. "Something to turn all of this around."

And that was all it took for everything to change as an eerie sound of machinery took over. Zero adopted a rather shocked expression. The last time he had heard this was...

His eyes widened and he looked around wildly to find the source of it.

"What's wrong, Suzaku?" Nunnaly asked in a bit for a fright, not liking the manner of his behaviour.

"What's that sound?" Kallen questioned, disturbed by the creepiness of it all.

Kaguya refused to speak to him outside of official matters; however she too looked around with a curious expression.

The sound of machinery boomed louder and louder until Kaguya spotted the stupidly obvious change in the sky, of all things.

"L-Look." She pointed above with her violently shaking hand and increasingly fearful demeanour. The other three were disturbed by her behaviour, but didn't have time to ponder it as it all became clear as soon as they looked at the sky.

Spread across the heavens was a sight that made all of them gulp rather nervously. It was a huge, demonic red symbol of a bird in flight. It was the symbol of Geass and, to a lesser extent, of Lelouch.

 **"** **Very well."** A demonic voice boomed from every direction.

The voice which filled the most horrifying of nightmares of many people, even now, after the invasion of self-proclaimed gods. The voice which had in the past reduced strong adults to a whimpering, crying mess.

The voice of the Devil.

Kaguya shook violently and even in the other three, the deep voice released some horrible memories, but it was also a signal of hope.

 **"** **I will grant you your wish."** The voice continued.

Zero drew a sharp breath at what he had heard.

"D-D-Did all of you hear that?!" Kallen asked loudly. The answer was undeniable as they confirmed it to each other with nods. Then it happened again.

"Hello, everyone." The same demonic voice declared from behind them, making them flinch violently. They turned their heads rather sharply in that direction.

There he was, standing between them and the Ikaruga. A sight that for most of the Earth's inhabitants would be just as nightmarish as the alien invaders. Perhaps even more so.

He stood there, casually, in the white outfit that he had died in, the twin regal black strips with the demonic eye symbols flapping wildly. The white and gold cloak wrapped across his right shoulder seemed to billow in the wind.

Kaguya Sumeragi stood up in shock and looked at his appearance in horror.

"You have fought well, brave warriors." The Emperor commended them regally as he took a single step in their direction, making all of them flinch. "However the hope of victory in this condition grows ever slimmer."

They looked at him for a few moments, in fear and uncertainty.

"Big brother." His little sister, Nunnaly greeted numbly, probably still processing it. Lelouch turned his attention specifically to her, making her swallow a lump in her throat.

"Hello, Nunnaly." Lelouch greeted kindly, a small smile on his face. "Your big brother is very proud of you."

Nunnaly vi Britannia, the 100th Empress of The Holy Britannian, sniffed tearfully, barely restraining her urge to cry. She had been forced, by circumstance, to grow up faster than she was probably supposed to. Still, hearing those words from her brother, in his voice, with his face, nearly made her break down at that moment.

"A-Are you real?" she asked uncertainly.

"I am." He confirmed to her with a nod.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead!?" Kaguya asked venomously, though there was trace of fear in his voice.

"I am." He answered calmly.

He looked at her and offered her a smile.

"Hello, Kaguya." He greeted her pleasantly. He ignored as she gritted her teeth and glared at him. She was angry at seeing him, but also too afraid to voice it too much. He didn't know why she was acting this way, but he supposed he could find out later.

He faced the new Zero, who stood stock still. If one who could have seen Suzaku's face he would have thought his friend had seen a ghost. Not that the truth was very far from that.

"Hello, Suzaku." He greeted his best friend, who flinched rather strongly at being addressed. Then he looked at the last person in the vicinity.

"Hello, Kallen." He said in a rather sad voice, remembering and mourning what could have been.

She gulped and licked her lips ever so slightly.

"H-How come you're here?" she asked him, a bit tactlessly maybe, but that's why he liked her. Lelouch smiled at her, causing her to redden ever so slightly. He still had it.

"God has made me an offer in how to fix this and I'm relaying it to you all." He told all of them after a moment.

"Firstly, however." He continued and all of them stiffened in alarm, as a response to his choice of words. He resisted the urge to chuckle, which would have been rather rude. "All of you aren't here yet."

They relaxed ever so slightly. This time he did chuckle.

* * *

Lelouch watched intently as his two most loyal warriors were captured by the enemy troops.

His maid and Orange-boy. He chuckled at that, finding amusement in their description.

The two of his most deadly combatants were captured rather easily. Far too easily in fact. He knew that both of them had an inhuman amount of stamina, so he concluded that this was a part of their plan.

His two loyal employees were taken, rather violently in fact, in a circle of rings and transported aboard a Ha'tak, one of the enemy ships.

His eyes widened as he figured, which specific alien that particular ship belonged to. He nearly cackled as he figured out his minions' intentions.

It was devious enough to almost make him shed a tear.

The aliens were in many respects much more advanced and superior than the people of Earth; however in others they were hopelessly primitive. Such as, in their ability to detect hidden weapons.

He knew that Sayoko had her little weapons hidden all over her body, including places where it was not polite to look or ask about. And Jeremiah, well, he _was_ a weapon, plain and simple. Even if you were to ignore the weapons, which were hidden as part of his body, such as his assassin blade in his forearm, cybernetic enhancements made Orange-kun more than powerful enough to break any man with even his bare hands.

He smirked maliciously as his two warriors were made to kneel in front of what to all appearances looked like a ridiculously overdressed teenage girl. Lelouch was not even slightly aware of just how utterly hypocritical this thought of his was.

The "girl" was actually the leader of all of the alien kings, or what Lelouch knew he was called – The Supreme System Lord.

"So." The overdressed bishonen or pretty boy as they say in Britannian English spoke in a disturbingly inhuman voice. Lelouch was somewhat disgusted by how dorky it sounded. Those parasites actually thought that was how a God was supposed to talk?

"You have been brought before me for your dire crimes against the Goa'uld Empire." The beautifully dressed villain spoke in his deep, spooky voice. Lelouch was somewhat proud, as even in the 'god's' primitive society, a person would not be actually brought before the king for just a minor crime. This meant that, for Sayoko and Jeremiah to be brought before the supreme leader, they must have killed a _lot of_ enemy troops.

"The punishment for this is of course, death." The Supreme System Lord continued as he stood up and foolishly approached two of the most deadly warriors on the planet. "Any last words?"

He said those last words with a smug little smile on his face.

"Only one." Jeremiah said calmly for the both of them, as he glared at his captor above.

"Oh?" The enemy leader asked pleasantly, well as pleasantly as was possible, given his disturbing voice.

 **"** **Die!"** The ninja maid answered for him. She threw a single throwing knife at the enemy king. He brought up his hand to activate his personal shield, but by that time it was already too late and he looked dumbly at the knife, which had pierced deep into his chest.

The enemy guards were quick to react, but at that time Jeremiah had already cut several of them down with his trusty assassin blade. Sayoko was not far behind and in no time at all, the enemy guards in the throne room were no more.

Lelouch smirked proudly.

Jeremiah and Sayoko stepped towards the kneeling and unmoving enemy leader, who looked somewhat fearfully towards them as blood continued to pool underneath him.

"I have three more." The cyborg told the dying parasite mockingly.

He raised his hand deep in the air and released his blade.

"ALL HAIL LELOUCH!" he bellowed deeply and with a swift strike, the head of Ra was separated from its body.

Sayoko nodded in satisfaction, but both of them were surprised when Lelouch had them vanish and reappear next to the Ikaruga.

* * *

Next, Lelouch tracked the locations of his remaining chosen, namely Lloyd Asplund and Cecile Croomy. Finally, he found them on board of an enemy ship, home to another one of the System Lords.

He appeared out of thin air in front of the throne as if that was the common occurrence.

This one looked quite different. The king of this pyramid ship looked somewhat older than the supreme system lord. He was immaculately dressed white male in a rather plain, but still very grandiose black outfit. He had short black hair and a well-groomed goatee.

Right now, though, he looked rather shocked. Lelouch couldn't think of a reason why. The nearby guards grabbed their impractical-looking staff weapons with a sense of urgency.

He smiled a rather malicious smile at the enemy lord.

"Who are you?" the hostile parasite demanded loudly, also a fan of the disturbing deep voice his master had favoured.

"I am Lelouch vi Britannia." The Emperor informed him cruelly, malice practically dripping from every syllable of his speech. "I am the god of this world."

The Devil walked towards the throne as guards closed on him from every direction.

"You have taken something of mine." Lelouch told him helpfully. He was somewhat amused to see that the guards were a little afraid to get closer.

"What would that be?" The enemy questioned in a forcibly calm voice.

Lelouch smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, as the unnerved guards could probably confirm for you.

"Two scientists. I know you have them." He informed with a kind smile, but with the words sounding anything but. "Give them to me."

"I am afraid I cannot do that." The rather tastefully dressed leader, in Lelouch's opinion, rejected with a flat tone. Lelouch smiled and patronizingly shook his head, as if the man-parasite was a small child who had just said something rather naive

"Guards, Kill him!" the enemy commanded and immediatelly, they complied. There was no solid matter in his body, however, since he was dead and all, so it was like they were piercing a hologram.

Then Lelouch snapped his fingers and the guards were blown back, away from him. He approached the throne upon which the now appropriately terrified leader sat.

"Then, I'm afraid you are of no use to me." He informed the now panicking leader. **"Die."**

The command took effect as if he were casting Geass. The body of the System Lord exploded in a shower of blood and gore a moment later.

A few minutes later, after he had managed to _kindly_ persuade one of the nearly catatonic guards to show him the way, Lelouch found the prison cells.

He smiled as he saw his two targets. They didn't return the smile as they saw him, however. Rather than that, they chose to gape at him like twin fish out of water. What a curious choice.

"Y-Your Majesty." Cecile said in a stunned voice, unable to quite comprehend what she was seeing. Lloyd wasn't much better.

Lelouch waved at them.

"Hi." He greeted casually, as if waking from the dead was an everyday occurrence for him.

And then, he transported both of them down to the others.

* * *

Everyone was now gathered together. And next time Lelouch would ask them the big question.

* * *

 **Lelouch:**

"Ahhhhhhhhh Ya ya yaaaah Ya ya yaaah

Yaaah ya yah Ohohohohoooo Oh ya yaaah Ya ya yaaah Yaaah ya yah Ye-ye-ye-ye-yeh Ye-ye-yeh Ye-ye-yeh Ohohohohoh Ye-ye-ye-ye-yeh Ye-ye-yeh Ye-ye-yeh Ohohohohooooooooooo Aaaaoooooh aaaooo Hooo haha Nah nah nah nah Nuh nuh nuh Nuh nuh nuh Nuh nuh nuh Nuh nuh nah! Nah nah nah nah nun Nun-ah nun Nun-ah nuh Nah nah nah nah nah! Nah nah nah nah Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Dah dah daaaaaaaaaah... Da-da-dah... Daaah. Da-dah... Lololololoooooooooooooo! Lah la-laaah La la laaah lol haha Ohohohoho ho-ho-ho ho-ho-ho oh-ho-ho-ho-ho Ohohohoho ho-ho-ho ho-ho-ho Lololololooo... AAIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE eeeee-eeeee-EEEEEEEEE! Luh-luh-lah... Lah Lah-lah Ohohohohooooooooo! BOPadududu-dah-da-du-daaaah! Da-da-daaaah Daaah Da-daaah... Lololololo lololo lololol Lalalalah! Trololololo lalala Oh-hahaha-ho Haha-hehe-ho Hohoho-he-ho Hahahaha-ho Lolololololo Lolololololo Lolololololo Lololo-LOL! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! La-la-laaaah! La la laaaah! Laaaah La-lah... Ohohohohoooooooooo! La, la-laaah! La-la-laaah lol haha... Lololololo Lololo Lololo Ohohohoho! Lololololol Lololo Lololo Ohohohohooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

* * *

 **AN:**

 _I am actually very sorry that this is moving a bit slowly, despite what Lelouch might say above. The next time will probably, hopefully be the last episode of With all my heart before the time-reversal._

 _There is a very good reason why Kaguya is upset and it's not the 'you left me all alone' type of crap either. I'm not bashing her, so give me a little credit. It shall be revealed next time. Or you could try to guess?_

 _Also, I said that all of them are now gathered. This obviously doesn't include the dead two people._

 _Also, Lelouch doesn't have any physical limits right now, in regards to his power. Since he's dead and everything. I'm thinking about imposing some later._

 _Or alternatively,_ _I could make him a full blown ascended being. I'm reasonably sure I could still make it interesting, though if you like life and death drama too much, it's probably not a good idea._

 _Though I must express my protests at how ff writers usually do overpowered characters. The usual way is to either make everyone else stronger, so that it doesn't actually make any difference, introduce much more powerful enemies or throw rather pointless new challenges, which the author has pulled out of his ass, in the "overpowered" hero's way. Please, guys, overpowered means that you're overpowered, not that the enemies automatically scale to your level, like in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The ass-pull new obstacles make me want to pull my hair out, too. Only the much more powerful enemies can be done well, sometimes. DBZ, for example doesn't do it well (despite its other qualities), as they simply come out of nowhere. What's the point of overwhelming strength if it's not exactly, well, overwhelming?_

 _I'm rather annoyed at the fact that as of late, every story urgently needs to be crisis based. I mean, if you look at Skyrim or Oblivion or well, very many games and stories probably, though I can't actually remember any now that I actually need to (argg). Well, you have to save every guild from some impending world shattering disaster. I mean, you have to save the world in the main quest, which is fair enough I guess, but then every guild is also so ridiciously ustable that they need YOU, yes YOU, to come save them._

 _What's wrong about a series of normal, creative quests and an actual rank-progression? No need for armageddon to come down upon me when I'm trying to become a rich thief._

 _Ahh, rant finished. I've gone so far of topic, it's crazy._

 _I had something else actually important to say, but I forgot._

 _Anyway, later,_

 _Imperatia_

 _P.S.: Yes, I do know the entire premise of my story is based on a massive unexpected alien invasion. :D_


	5. The End of the World

_Greetings,_

 _People don't generally tend to want to work together with a genocidal maniac - who knew? Also, you are reading quite well, my precious little minions. 3300+ views and 1500+ unique visitors. Don't stop now.  
_

* * *

Lelouch smiled pleasantly as he stepped towards his chosen champions or companions, both of which words could have been seen as appropriate to describe them. They were, a mixed bag, as far as reactions towards him were concerned.

The most surprising and negative reaction was from Kaguya Sumeragi. She was without much argument, the most influential politician in the world. Most of this influence of hers she had received from her own ability, though it cannot be dismissed that she was also born in a highly respected position, but the rest of it was her own knowledge and abilities.

She had in the past, after the first Black rebellion was defeated, easily acquired the ear of the Empress of the Chinese Federation. Then, after the events of Zero Requiem she also befriended his sister, the Empress of Britannia as well as several prominent people in the former Europia United. She was one of the first people outside Shinjuku Ghetto who had seen Zero as the rising star that he was and fairly quickly, she had attached her influence to his.

Her skills in politics were second to none, not even his own skills quite compared, as he had been completely incapable of convincing the Tianzi of anything at all. Strategically, she was no match at all, but she had the people skills which he sadly lacked. He was the invincible leader and she was his approachable and kindly first lady, who those who were too intimidated by him, could approach.

It was her masterful skills which the 99th Emperor coveted, however at this moment she was glaring at him quite heatedly, making him wonder just what he had done to her, that was so wrong. He was sure that she wouldn't be actually all that angry just for kidnapping her and friend, since he was sure that a politician of her calibre who have been able to now recognize that they were never truly in danger.

He put the glaring princess out of his mind.

Suzaku, or rather, Zero seemed shell-shocked, which wasn't too far from Lelouch's expectations. Really, he suspected that his best friend had hit an error in his brain and didn't actually fully know how to react. Still, he was polite enough and replied to his second greeting, even if it was a stuttering mess of an answer.

Jeremiah and Sayoko seemed beyond happy to see him; considering he was their former lord and they probably weren't too happy about Zero Requiem and all that it entailed in the first place. Still, he waved them off as they attempted to kneel, discouraging them from doing unnecessary posturing.

Lloyd and Cecile weren't quite that happy, but they were glad to see him nonetheless, having saved them from their repeated death at the hands of Ba'al.

Nunnaly and Kallen seemed glad to see him in general, but they were quite a bit uncertain about it, which wasn't too surprising considering that he was firstly supposed to be dead and had left them in a position where they would probably be quite uncertain about him and his motivations.

There were two or rather three more missing, but he already knew their answer, since they informed him via God. So he put his thoughts out of his mind and decided to end the staring (or in Kaguya's case glaring) contest.

"So, as I said before, I have an offer for all of you." He told them regally, addressing each one of them separately, so that there could be no doubt that they were listening. He took a deep breath.

"We have a possible solution for this ... situation of yours." He continued in his deep voice. He heard at least some of them stiffen at this.

"L-Lelouch, I'm sorry." Suzaku began apologizing again. His friend took of his mask and took an infuriatingly submissive posture, dipping his head. "I failed a-"

Lelouch gritted his teeth in annoyance and scowled rather nastily at his completely idiotic friend. His expression made Suzaku shut up quite quickly.

"Shut up, Suzaku." He told his successor in a voice practically dripping with irritation. "I have no need to hear more of your idiotic self-sacrificing melodrama right now."

He was pretty certain he heard a few snorts at his completely hypocritical words, but he took them in stride as he saw that even Nunnaly had kept a decent poker face. Well, Kaguya was still glaring, but what can you do.

"As I'm sure you must by now be aware, I did not actually anticipate an alien invasion apocalypse." Lelouch told his chosen companions in a somewhat sarcastic voice. He glared back at Suzaku, who shifted somewhat under his stare. "So, I'm not going to give you a hard time for this, since it actually caught all of us off guard."

Kaguya snorted disdainfully. Given how she seemed to be against him, he imagined she must have been thinking something uncomplimentary about his choice of words.

"I have received a contract from God." He told them after a few moments of silence. He glared at Suzaku for a moment, to insure he wouldn't interrupt again. "The details are as follows."

"Myself and my subordinate will each receive 10 companions." He told them imperiously. They seemed to listen attentively. "Then we will return to year 2009 and we will begin preparations to combat the threat."

Lelouch was a person who absolutely hated explaining things to people. It took an absolutely staggering amount of time to do this. Then there was also the fact that people usually had difficulty following his train of thought and therefore asked a lot of questions.

Like the time when he had been forced to read a bedtime story to Euphemia and Nunnaly. Cornelia was also listening, for some reason. And when he said 'The end' the vicious little things started asking questions and ... and he put that thought out of his head as it was completely irrelevant for the situation at hand.

Nevertheless, even this time, it didn't stick.

"Your Imperial Majesty, there are only eight of us." Surprisingly, it was Jeremiah who asked this. Lelouch signed and glared at him tiredly.

"Obviously, the other two are dead and have already decided affirmatively." He explained in a long suffering tone, rolling his eyes.

"Who are they?" Suzaku asked. While Lelouch was glad that his best friend had managed to get through his self-imposed pity party, but he would have preferred _that_ to him asking stupid questions. But what can you do.

"It's Shirley Fennete and Euphemia li Britannia." Told them, calming himself from his irritation. He was then witness to a few shocked exclamations. Oh, god, why couldn't they just go with it.

"Euphemia." His successor said in a stunned voice. Pretty much everyone seemed equally surprised, well except for Nunnaly, who only smiled sweetly.

Lelouch signed.

Kaguya seemed most stunned of all.

"B-But I thought she would hate you." She stuttered, forgetting to hate him for a moment there. Lelouch looked at her drily.

"Yes, so did I." He told her. And there it was, she remembered again once he addressed her.

"Who is your subordinate?" Kallen asked with a suspicious glare. If he were a lesser man, he would have thrown his arms up in the air at this question.

"Will it make a difference in your decision?" He asked in thinly veiled annoyance that was readily apparent. "He will have to obey me regardless of whether you like him or not."

He glared at them.

"So, yes or no? Explanations can wait for someone else." He told them. He pre-emptively glared at Suzaku once he tried to open his mouth.

There was silence for a few moments. Then Nunnaly spoke.

"Will you be alive again, Lelouch?" she asked him hesitantly. He nodded affirmatively and she smiled in response. "Then, I'm in."

Kaguya gaped like a fish at her response, as did Suzaku, who quickly recovered and smiled nostalgically. Nunnaly had been forced to grow up rather quickly, but still she had not forgotten her older brother.

Suzaku shook his head, showing a genuine smile for once that was not of the bitter-sweet variety.

"C.C. told me what really happened with Euphemia." He told his friend in response. He had been watching carefully and he knew that his friend had not lied once after his appearance. Surprisingly. "If Euphemia was willing to forgive you, then I have no problem working with you again."

Lelouch nodded thankfully.

"Jeremiah and I will gladly follow you again, Lelouch-sama." Sayoko spoke for the both of them. That was not really surprising. If Jeremiah had been willing to follow him after he had destroyed his career and if Sayoko was still willing to return to him when he invaded her home country, then Lelouch couldn't imagine anything that would destroy their loyalty.

"Thank you, Sayoko, Jeremiah." Lelouch smiled at them gratefully.

"Will I be able to build the Lancelot again, Your Imperial Majesty?" Lloyd asked in a rather coy manner. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful to Suzaku, but Shinkiro Rei is just not the same."

"I don't see why not." The Emperor shrugged elegantly.

"Yay!" Lloyd exclaimed, proving to be true to his reputation as an eccentric. "I'm in."

Cecile signed but nodded.

"You can count on my help as well, Your Majesty." She told him with an exasperated smile. One would think that she would have gotten used to her colleague in all this time. She looked at her once subordinate, now boss, with a bitter sweet smile on her face. She was glad to see him happy again, but once more, it was because of another and she could only look on from the distance.

Lelouch nodded at both of them in response. His eyes stayed on Cecile for a bit and his eyes widened a bit as he made a connection that he had previously missed.

He then looked at his most trustworthy Ace. Kallen sighed.

"I'm willing to follow again, Zero." She addressed him in calm voice. Suzaku looked just a bit distressed for having so easily lost his title once the real deal was with them again. "Under one condition."

Lelouch gave her a considering look and motioned for her to go on.

"I want you to honestly answer my question." She told him firmly. He nodded at her.

"What question?" he asked her and he was surprised when her face gained a rather dark shade of red.

"N-N-Not n-now!" She told him heatedly, motioning wildly to the others in the vicinity. Ah, he could probably imagine what the question was now.

"I'll answer it." Lelouch confirmed for her and he saw as she took a sign of relief.

"Then, I'm in." She told him firmly. He nodded and looked at the last person who still had to decide. She wore a rather disgusted expression on her face, no doubt aimed both at him and at the others as well.

"I'm surprised at all of you." She told them in a sharp, but disgusted voice. "Just a few words and you're all buddy-buddy with him again."

Nunnaly winced as Kaguya glared at them collectively.

"Did you forget just what he had done?" she yelled at them in a somewhat desperate voice. She glared at him viciously. "Even if we forget all his atrocities as Zero, he still killed thousands of people as the Emperor of Britannia!"

Suzaku winced somewhat at her sharpness.

"Don't you remember?!" she asked while she kept looking at him in disgust. "The Demon Emperor had entire families killed, he vanished entire populations for just speaking the wrong word."

She became even angrier and gritted her teeth in fury as she saw Lelouch become more and more smug with each spoken word.

"How can you look so proud of that?!" she screamed at him. Lelouch smiled.

"I think, that in this case, I have a right to be." He told her imperiously, the insufferably smug look never leaving his face.

She took a deep breath at his answer. He grinned at her amusedly.

"Do you know, Kaguya-dono, the two superpowers that I possessed after I defeated your best friend, Schneizel?" he asked her with a smile on his face. "Geass and the Damocles."

She glared at him sharply.

"What about it?" she asked angrily. He smirked demonically at her, causing her to pale just a little bit.

"Very convenient powers are they not?" he asked smugly, ignoring her stiffening. "Ideal for controlling people ..."

Suzaku shook his head at his blatant baiting.

"But to answer your implied question, Kaguya-dono." He continued, ignoring her opening mouth. "They would also be useful for covertly moving large portions of the population."

He saw her stiffening and gasping at the revelation. He smiled as he saw it on her face.

"You moved them?!" she asked in a shocked whisper. He shook his head in a mock disappointed manner.

"I am disappointed in you, lady Kaguya." He told her mockingly, as she just gaped a him, like a malformed fish out of water. "Did you never hear of the large population of former nobles who suddenly and mysteriously found themselves in the middle of Siberia?"

He looked at her with a comically surprised expression.

"I mean, what would they be doing there?" he asked her amusedly as she tried to stutter an answer in response to his question.

"B-But, I thought it was your sick sense of humour!" she told him after a moment, not at all sure in her prevailing worldview anymore.

"No, no, no." He shook his head at her answer, but then he was forced to re-examine her words.

"Well, I did find it somewhat amusing at the time." He admitted, causing Suzaku to snort. Somewhat was not a word that his friend would probably use, considering how much he was laughing after coming up with the idea. "But pretty much the same happened to everyone else, without the Siberia part."

She looked at him in shock; her entire view of him had come crashing down.

"So, when someone said something they _shouldn't_ have." Lelouch confirmed for her, pacing in front of them. "I came to the town, made a big speech about how they would all be made to suffer for their malicious slander. Then I geassed them, loaded them on the Damocles and released them somewhere else as refugees trying to escape my rule."

He smiled smugly.

"My rule witnessed the largest wave of migration in the world." He told her amusedly, practically gloating to her. "What's more, most of the people were quite happy to spite me by hiding and otherwise helping the refugees, as they had another enemy to unite against."

"Populations mixed like never before and national hatreds became irrelevant in the wake of the common enemy." He smirked. Kaguya felt herself become weak in the knees. "So, in simple words, I used the World's hatred of me to manipulate everyone to do exactly what I wanted them to do."

He stopped gloating then and looked at his former first lady with a kinder smile, as the others looked on with varying expressions.

"Is this true?" she asked the others hesitantly and was not really surprised when they confirmed it for her.

"So, knowing what you know now, do you want to work with me to destroy this world and create a better one in its stead?" he asked her gently. "To prepare the world for the goa'uld, but without myself as the enemy?"

He smiled as after a few moments, she took a deep breath and nodded somewhat shakily. He couldn't blame her for what she said to him, but he was glad that she no longer saw him as the enemy.

"Good." He then said imperiously. "Now, the name of my subordinate is Charles zi Britannia, my father."

He was not really surprised when the shouting of his shocked chosen companions began. He was quite happy that he was dead, given the fact that otherwise his ears might have been in trouble. It warmed his heart and he became quite smug that all of them saw Charles as a far worse option than himself.

He raised his hand.

"Does it make a difference?" He interrupted their enraged yelling and gave them a rather cold look. "Even if we wish otherwise, this is what God has decided."

He conveniently left out the fact that if he had still hated Charles, he wouldn't have given a rats ass about any god's commands. Like he'd let some uppity representation of all humanity to order him around. This was also the main reason why so few world leaders had actually joined the collective, despite the copious amount of time many of them had to 'absolve themselves of their sins'.

"I am to lead all our efforts, don't forget that!" He reminded them sternly as they calmed down. Well to be fair, the shouting was mostly from Suzaku, Kaguya and Kallen, the rest took the news somewhat more calmly, despite also being surprised. "Charles will obey me ... _or else._ "

In the World of C, where Charles zi Britannia and his companions were watching the development, the 98th Emperor felt a chill and barely restrained his urge to gulp as his son seemed to look right at him when he said those last words.

"Unfortunately, we will not be able to prevent neither the invasion nor the Shinjuku disaster." He told them. They remained calm, though Kallen barely so. "We will probably not have the means at that point to do that, though I will lead once again the battle in Shinjiku against Clovis. I'm afraid the invasion will be quite impossible to prevent. We might even be deposited right in the middle of it."

He smiled grimly. Though none of them reacted, he could see that they understood.

"I will give each of you your final instructions in the World of C, but for now, it's time to end this." He told all of them in a somewhat ominous tone.

He spread his arms dramatically and raised his head in the sky, facing the demonic symbol of the bird in flight.

"God, collective unconscious!" He shouted imperiously as he glared at the heavens. "Reverse the time back to 2009 and give us a future once more!"

Before any of them could react to his dramatics, the sky reacted. The ominous Geass symbol seemed to heat up at that moment, becoming more pronounced. And then, it started.

All of their surroundings seemed to start disintegrating at that moment. The ruins of buildings, ships and knightmares seemed to return to the dust, from which they were inevitably created.

Lelouch turned around.

Three more had joined their small group.

C.C. smiled blandly as soon as she was spotted by the others and waved at him slightly. He smirked in response.

"Hello, Kallen, Nunnaly, Sayoko, Suzaku.*" Shirley smiled gently, greeting each of them in turn. "It's good to see you all again."

She then went around and gave each one of her startled friends a small one armed hug. All of them returned the hug. Nunnaly smiled tearfully at her.

"You look just as pretty and nice as you sounded." She told her and her friend from the Student's Council smiled in much the same way.

Then the last one appeared. It was Euphemia li Britannia and she was just as radiant as ever, but thankfully without any blood stains. She stepped gently to the others, while Lelouch watched with a somewhat bitter-sweet smile.

She greeted her little sister and pulled her into a hug. Nunnaly could not contain her tears this time, as all the shocks were becoming a bit too much for her. The others weren't any better, even Jeremiah and Cecile who didn't know either of them very well were moved by the happenings. Lloyd was, well, Lloyd, but at least he knew better than to interrupt.

"I'm sorry for big brother's stupid actions." Nunnaly cried in her favourite big sister's shoulder. Euphemia smiled.

"I was quite angry at him for a bit." Her sister admitted to her. "But then I saw that the both of us had been used for an old man's ambitions."

Finally, she released her and looked at Lelouch.

"Truthfully, the only thing he was really guilty of in that moment is blatant stupidity and a bad sense of humour." Euphemia said teasingly, causing Lelouch to scowl playfully back at her.

Then she approached her former knight, Suzaku and immediately pulled him into a hug. She patted him on the back as he cried and comforted him. Lelouch did not begrudge them this and neither did anyone else. It would be quite some time before they could see each-other again.

Lelouch was somewhat startled as Kallen tried to pull him away from the others, but found out that her hands went right through him. She was a bit shocked when, after a few moments of trying, his body seemed to suddenly solidify and she could actually grab his wrist.

He obediently followed her in the direction of the Ikaruga. She stopped just in front of the ruins.

He smiled at her slightly as she seemed to collect herself somewhat nervously.

"What am I to you, Lelouch?" she asked him somewhat timidly, which was not at all like his Ace, but he knew that she desperately wanted to hear an answer now that he was here.

Lelouch chuckled sadly, which caused her to glare at him.

"At first, you were a useful piece on my chessboard." He told her and became a bit angry with himself at making her nearly recoil at his words. "Then you became my ace, Q1, who I trusted above all others."

She seemed to be a little relieved after he continued. He smiled.

"Last time in Ikaruga." He told her as she stiffened slightly at the remainder of one of the worst nights she had lived through. "I lost everything. But then you came and reminded me that I still had others."

"And even through my depression, I was beginning to see it." He continued. "But then, _Schneizel_ came."

She winced as she heard the name of his brother, spoken like in the same tone one would say a curse word.

"I knew that my frenzied former subordinates would not hesitate to shoot me." He told her. "And they wouldn't hesitate to kill you as well, especially since my darling brother convinced them that I had all of them under my Geass."

"And I couldn't bear to see you hurt as well, so I pushed you away." He admitted to her. She sighed and nodded.

Then his head snapped to the side from the heavy slap that she gave him.

"Don't make excuses to me, Lelouch!" she told him angrily, which caused him to blink. "I understand why you did that, but why didn't you come for me later?"

He looked at her in a somewhat stunned expression.

"I didn't want you to take part in Zero Requiem." He admitted to her and although infuriated by it, she accepted it without further physical attacks. "And I didn't want you to convince me out of it."

"Don't go deciding such things on your own!" she shouted at him with a somewhat tearful expression, while he just stood there, stunned.

They stood there in silence, watching as the world around them seemed to turn into dust.

"What about _us_?" she asked after a moment. He looked at her.

"What _about_ us?" He asked, a bit puzzled. The red-haired Ace rolled her eyes at his denseness.

"Is there an us? Can there be?" she asked him, with long suffering patience. Lelouch seemed to blink in response.

"Truthfully, I'm confused." He told her hesitantly. "I could picture us together, but I could just as easily picture myself with either C.C. or Shirley."

He smirked in a bit of amusement as his stunning friend slapped her forehead with both of her hands. A double facepalm, it was said to be called.

"I should probably punch you." She nodded to herself. She glared at him in annoyance. "Can't you be at least a bit more tactful?"

He smirked and shrugged unapologetically.

"Well, you're honest at least." She said drily, though her eye kept twitching. "Anyway, I'm glad I'm more than just a soldier."

Suzaku smirked as he looked at his best friend and Kallen. They seemed to have resolved their differences, as the way Kallen chased him around whilst waving her fist seemed more playful than mad. Euphemia giggled at his side.

"Father is probably going to have fun with Lelouch's love life." She told him with some amusement.

There was also the fact that Shirley was attempting to throttle C.C. for corrupting her Lulu and using him for her nefarious purposes, while the immortal Empress kept using snide comebacks to her statements.

Suzaku smiled, looking as the last bits of their world disappeared from the underneath them. They seemed to stand in a small bubble in the middle of a black void, but the Knight of Zero was unafraid. For the first time, in a long, long time, he allowed himself to feel hope again.

* * *

"Ah, but, my son." Charles said regally from atop his throne in an imperious manner. "One is none and two is just as bad. And why stop at three, when you can have 108?"

Marianne rolled her eyes.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _Next chapter will be in year 2009._

 _This went way different that I imagined in my mind it would. But the way I imagined it, it would take at least five more chapters to write, probably._

 _Kaguya hated Lelouch and Suzaku because she thought that they killed basically everyone who looked at them wrongly. Even if it was for the sake of Zero Requiem, she couldn't condone that. The rest knew the truth and Kallen didn't really believe the rumors anyway. Kaguya on the other hand had visited the ghost towns that resulted from Lelouch's population movements and assumed that they were basically all killed and buried somewhere (or in the sea). Despite the fact that no mass graves were found, people still jumped to conclusions given that it was fashionable to hate LL. Well, we shall see if R3 will either confirm or deny this theory of mine or ignore the problem all together._

 _Looking at the story like this, it seems a bit lacking in explanation, but then again, stories that explain everything tend to be too tedious on the details. All that needs to be revealed, shall be revealed in time._

 _I will neither confirm nor deny any particular pairing or combination there-of. Muahahaha_

 _Also, not that you'd know or care really, but I feel like I have to brag that I've finally managed to read all the 1008 pages of The Wealth of Nations. Interesting book, but long as shit. Now I shall fell like some sort of expert on economics for a bit, until reality hits me in the head. I hope this happens though, as people who swear by only one book are generally people to be avoided. Just look at christian fundamentalists, muslim fundeamentalists, market fundamentalists, etc. etc._

 _One more thing in this absurdly long note. There will be a lot of OC characters in this story. Most of them will be throw-away characters, such as guards, political allies, random people, whatever. They will never be the central focus, just supporting characters. I hope this terribly surprising fact (note the sarcasm) does not cause a wave on backslash on me like it did on another story. A general rule of thumb is that if you managed to survive Charlie's Angels ( 3rd chapter I think), you should also survive the rest._

 _Imperatia_

 _*Shirley should call four people by name in this bit. If there aren't four names here, FF deleted them for some terribly important reason._

 _The old man that Euphemia refers to is V.V._

* * *

Some will call me crazy, but I know that deep inside your hearts, all of you know that what I am trying to tell you is nothing other than the truth.

Chairs are dangerous. You cannot bargain with them. You cannot reason with them. They feel no pity, remorse or fear. And the chairs control absolutely everything. All the wars in history have in one way or another been caused by them.


	6. I banish Thee

_Greetings,_

 _I am glad to present you another chapter from yours truly. I hope you like it. Review if you find the time._

* * *

Charles blinked his eyes blearily as he found himself in a place, which was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He closed his eyes and opened them once more. He was surprised by the unfamiliar sensation and realized that his hand had been raised. Given that he had been the Holy Britannian Emperor for some thirty years before he died, he quickly adapted himself to the new situation and looked around imperiously, with his head raised high.

He was seated in his throne in the throne room of his palace in the capitol city of Pendragon.

He was surprised to see Lelouch in front of the throne and he watched with a bit of consternation as his son was lifted in the air by two of his royal guards and practically carried away from his throne. He cringed somewhat, in his mind at least, when his evil son glared at him in thinly veiled annoyance and mouthed something to him, but without actually speaking it aloud.

Charles was rather adept at reading lips, which had been a useful skill to cultivate, in order to understand, even without talking to them, just what the nobles were gossiping about at any given moment. Unfortunately, this wasn't gossip and the message was rather more sinister than that.

'You're going to pay for this.'

His son was, unsurprisingly, just as unreasonable as ever. It showed that Lelouch had been raised in a mostly female-dominated environment, as he too seemed to blame him for all sort of things that he couldn't possibly be guilty of. If anyone was at fault, it was God since he was the one who chose to deposit them in the moment right after their adorable confrontation in the throne room was all but finished.

Fortunately, right at that moment something rather favourable happened, which might possibly work to distract his son for a little while. Some rather unintelligent looking bint of a noble chose to release a rather disturbing sounding giggle at Lelouch's misfortune.

The 98th Emperor did not share the same ballistic hatred for titled gentry than his son, but even he could see where Lelouch was coming from. His son saw nobles as all together useless parasites that cost the state and contributed nothing. Sort of the same way that most common people in the EU saw immigrants, except that in their case, their hatred was politically encouraged by the inept governments in order to keep attention away from everything that was wrong with their governance. But, in this case it was probably true that at the very least, their privileges were rather unnecessary and actually somewhat politically damaging for him. Quite a few of them might have been obliged to a visit from the tax inspection or a criminal detective if their special rights were to be suspended tomorrow.

But regardless, the idiotic female's little giggle proved fortuitous as his son thankfully turned his attention away from him and chose to glare at the inept little noble instead. The poor fool would probably be found dead the next morning.

Finally, the massive doors closed as the two guards dragged his son out of the room like some hardened criminal. Lelouch gave him one last glare and a nod, confirming that God's plan to return them back to this time had indeed worked.

Charles sighed as the guard by the door announced another visitor, a Count something or other. But the Emperor ignored the announcement and stood up regally.

"I have matters to attend to." He boomed imperiously, making it clear in no uncertain terms that this audience was over. No one dared contradict him. While he never quite had the same reputation as his son had somehow managed to acquire in his short reign, he was still not a person to be trifled with.

Though his parting words were somewhat of an excuse, he wasn't necessarily lying, as there was a great deal to do. Firstly, he would work to conserve as many of Marianne's loyalists as possible. After her death, many of the more important people who were loyal to her took exception to his seeming indifference in the face of her death and the banishment of her children.

The first time, he did not predict the possibility of them starting a riot and attempting a coup, but it happened nonetheless. That is why he had to take steps to calm them, so as to insure that they would still be available to serve his wife once she returned to her body. They would be far more useful that way as they would be if rotting in prison or dead.

He would have to summon them and tell them at least part of the truth, pertaining to them, specifically the part about Lelouch and Nunnaly being banished for their own safety and the half-truth of Marianne being in coma. He would inform only the most radical and extreme of those elements, the ones who had been involved in rioting, as the majority had not actually blamed him for the attack.

There was also the far more complex and difficult part of attempting to stop the invasion of Japan.

Contrary what Lelouch may have believed, he was actually a rather cautious politician, certainly not of the same type as his eleventh son. Unfortunately, in order to divorce himself from most of the more banal responsibilities, he had decentralised the power of the Imperial throne quite a bit. This came back to bite him. He could of course theoretically order the invasion to not proceed, but he did not dare go against the majority opinion of the country in such a way.

And if members of the Imperial family were believed to be dead, then the people, commoners and nobles alike, would certainly strongly favour the invasion. This would have been rather simple to resolve if he had been the one to give them such an impression. Unfortunately that was not the case. He suspected V.V. hand in the matter, but that was practically all he knew, other than the fact that the media suddenly started reporting it. Charles admittedly had planned something of that nature; however his older brother had beaten him to the punch. Previously, he had thought it to be helpful, considering his objectives, now however...

He signed as he stopped in front of his suite and his royal guards let him trough. Like Lelouch he believed this task to be quite impossible. Even ignoring V.V., too many noble and military interests had Japan within their sights at this moment.

"Your Majesty." Bismarck stood respectfully from the exquisite white sofa in his private waiting room. Charles gave him a brief nod and his loyal knight followed him inside his office. Thankfully, at least the first task would be reasonably simple to accomplish, with some help of Bismarck's detailed knowledge as to who they had to watch out for.

* * *

Lelouch wore a deep frown as he was finally alone and free of the guards. He found himself rather heavily annoyed by the presumption that they could act in such disrespect towards his person, but he put it out of his mind after some deliberation.

He watched in silence as his designated driver drove him back to his home in Aries Villa. The man, Bobby (an unusually common name for a Britannian), he reminded himself, seemed rather unnerved by his silence, though Lelouch had never remembered himself being very talkative in front of any of the staff. Perhaps it was just because of the way he had been bodily thrown into the car.

He ignored that little thought and looked around the admittedly very beautiful environment surrounding the road. There were many gleaming white buildings on both sides of the road, however they were much more sparsely placed that in the outer part of the city. They were the residences of the Imperial family lines and each of those homes was surrounded by a carefully nurtured garden of flowers and trees. The other buildings were important Pendragon landmarks, such as the OSI compound, most important embassies and headquarters of the most important firms, such as the Ashford Foundation. Not that that particular firm would last for very long now.

Saint Darwin Street was a rather unforgiving place. It was the centre of the imperial power of Britannia and those who did not belong here, were quickly rooted out. Beneath all that beauty was the unforgiving cold truth of the matter. Only the strong were welcome here. Even royals had better leave once it has been determined that they don't live up to expectations placed on them. If he was a betting man, and he _was_ actually, he would bet that this was one of the reasons why Clovis chose to become the Viceroy of Area 11, though perhaps not the only one.

But all this was unimportant, Lelouch though as he finally saw the Aries Villa after a few turns. Soon after, the iron gates of the palace opened and the car stopped in the courtyard. The 99th Emperor immediately opened the door and stepped outside of the car with purpose.

"Y-Your Highness." The driver stuttered and feeling somewhat surprised, Lelouch turned around.

"What?" he asked tersely, making the simple employee shift a little under his gaze. Just as he became tempted to snap at him out of impatience, the man chose to speak.

"I-I'm sorry for your loss, Your Highness." He told him and the prince blinked a bit in surprise. "All of the staff is. We all admired Lady Marianne."

Lelouch stared at him for a moment, causing the employee to bow his head nervously. Most people would have found it somewhat comical for a grown man to act so subservient to a little boy, but Royalty was considered special in that regard.

"Thank you." He murmured softly and looked at his uncertain employee for just a moment. Then he turned around and entered the villa, which looked more like a small castle really, what with its immense size and tall towers.

He almost ignored the other staff, only giving each of them a distracted nod, which was in actuality more than was probably expected of him and went straight to the rooms, seeking to find Nunnaly's. Finally after a bit of exploring, he stood in front of it. He knocked and without waiting for a response, he entered.

His little sister was in her bed, recovering from all the procedures which were likely done on her. Despite this, she was awake. Beside her bed, in a tall chair with a red cushion, sat the ever reliable Orange knight, Jeremiah Gottward, who took it upon himself to insure that nothing would be amiss.

"Lelouch?" Nunnaly questioned in a rather weak voice. Though her mind might still be fresh, her body was obviously tired.

"It's me." He confirmed to her softly and stepped towards her. He went near the bed and gave her a hug. He was not particularly surprised when she practically melted into his arms. They stayed that way for a few moments.

Jeremiah seemed a bit uncertain as to whether he should stay, but a glance from the Emperor confirmed that for him.

"It was a bit eerie to wake up in the middle of strange doctors." His sister admitted. She then opened her eyes, making him gasp just a bit at seeing her beautiful lavender eyes again. This time she succeeded far more quickly than the first time. "But thankfully, Jerry soon came and they left."

There was silence for just a few more moments.

"We'll go back to Japan soon." He told both of them. Orange seemed a little bit uncertain about that, so he made sure to ask. "What is it, Jeremiah?"

"Are you sure it's okay, Your Imperial Majesty?" he asked his master respectfully. "From what I know, you'll most certainly be caught in the conflict. Perhaps if I and some other guards were to accompany you..."

He trailed off as his lord shook his head.

"We'll be fine." He said reassuringly. "We'll meet Suzaku and Sayoko; in addition I have the power I told you about."

He snapped his fingers and a strange black flame seemed to appear in his hand. The other two occupants looked at it in fascination for a moment before he cancelled it.

"So if anyone tries to mess with us, I'll turn them into bloody paste." He finished in a rather sinister voice. Nunnaly seemed a bit queasy at the imagery, but also a bit reassured as did Jeremiah.

The knight conceded with a nod, though he would of course still worry. But he had his own job to do. Speaking of which.

"Jeremiah." Said Lelouch and his knight raised his head in attention, recognizing the tone of command. His master gave him a simple white tissue, made out of soft silk. The handkerchief ended with black on the outer ends. The knight looked at the soft fabric in puzzlement as he turned it around in his hand several times.

Then his lord took a simple white paper and a pen and wrote a few short instructions. He made sure to make them sound appropriately commanding as well as somewhat mystical. He then folded the paper and gave it to him. He took it and read the short message, which was somewhat prose like.

"This is so you'll have something to show to the others." Lelouch told him and the knight nodded, remembering the plan. "We will leave after a few days, so after you see us off, we won't see each-other again in quite a while."

His knight offered another nod in acknowledgement of the words and the rest of the day was spent laying about and talking casually about more inconsequential things.

* * *

It was quite nice to be in Japan again, Nunnaly thought. She knew it wouldn't last unfortunately, as she had become all too aware of the circumstances surrounding the invasion. She was a bit angry that their supposed death had been and probably would again be used in such a manner, but she knew that there was nothing that could be done about it. While most of Lelouch's chosen would grow up to be rather formidable on either the battlefield or on the field of politics, none of them had any sway in how things were run right now in Britannia.

Lelouch's power was no help in this manner, as according to him, it thinned considerably in its potency as soon as it had to encompass a larger area. The invasion concerned the interests of a considerable number of nobles and he doubted (as did she) that it could be used to change the minds of possibly thousands of people. And things were already being set in motion.

She had no faith in Charles zi Britannia at all. At first she had thought that he was a malicious man and a negligent parent, now she also thought he was a coward. It was perhaps less than fair of her to expect a man to go against the will of more than a billion people, but she was not feeling particularly charitable towards him at the moment.

She looked around, taking in the sights and sounds in the Tokyo International Airport, observing in particular the large flight control building towering over the rest of the compound. Then her eyes landed on the people in front of them.

They were obviously a delegation coming to welcome them to Japan, she thought as her brother pushed her simple wheelchair down towards them. The delegation was lead by Kyoshiro Tohdoh, who was in full military outfit and he was surrounded by a few other soldiers. Lelouch had coached her a bit on the right way on how to greet them, well, in truth it was more about how deep to bow in greeting. Though it was a good thing to learn, Nunnaly had also enjoyed it for the time spent with her brother.

Tohdoh approached them, while the rest waited behind him.

"Welcome to Japan, Prince Lelouch, Prince Nunnaly." He said politely in Britannian. "I am Kyoshiro Tohdoh and I'll be taking you to your place of residence. Pleased to meet you."

He then bowed respectfully, but without indicating any sort of subservience. Lelouch walked from behind her and stood beside her.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Kyoshiro." Lelouch greeted formally, but politely, speaking for the both of them. "Thank you for taking us under your care."

Then her brother surprised the soldiers by matching his bow.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Kyoshiro." She too copied her brother. She was a bit afraid that they would take offence since she couldn't stand up to greet him equally, but they seemed to have already been informed of her condition.

It was a quick and easy way to earn a little bit respect. Previously, Lelouch had only dipped his head in greeting, indicating unknowingly that he thought of himself as a superior, so he had earned a little bit of instant dislike from the colonel, however unfair it might have been.

His performance on meeting Kururugi Genbu was not any better, since he upon observing Tohdoh's reaction made the opposite mistake and bowed too deeply, accidentally making it seem as if he was mocking them or alternatively, their traditions. Genbu gave him some leeway, accounting for the cultural difference, Suzaku and his mother however did not.

The colonel, was it colonel? Neither of them knew at this point. Tohdoh cleared his throat, with a bit of loss as how to proceed.

"If you would please follow after me." He asked them in gruff politeness after a moment and Lelouch stepped behind her again and pushed her wheelchair in his direction. The group went in the direction of the flight control tower for few moments and then they came across three brown-coloured jeeps. Not particularly glamorous looking, at least in comparison with the usual vehicles that royals travelled with, but they would serve their purpose just as well.

Lelouch thought that maybe it was the Prime Minister's way of subtly indicating that here they weren't going to be following their every whim. The use of military officers for their transport might have been used for the same reason and perhaps also for slightly intimidating them. He wasn't particularly bothered about it and neither was his sister. He felt a bit less paranoid because of it, actually. It seemed a rather frank statement in comparison with how it was done in Britannia and therefore somewhat reassuring.

They royals as well as Todoh and one additional soldier, the driver, went to the car in the middle. The colonel observed as Lelouch carried his sister from her wheelchair to one of the seats in the back of the car, without expecting anyone else to do it for him. He took the wheelchair and put it back in the trunk.

The Colonel (or was it?) nodded at him approvingly and motioned to Lelouch to enter the car and then did the same thing himself.

Nunnaly made herself comfortable next to her brother. She looked through the window and sometimes she commented on any interesting sites that she saw.

"I heard about your mother's death." Tohdoh commented quite bluntly after a few minutes of driving. They were still in the city, which indicated the sheer size and complexity of it. Nunnaly stiffened just a little bit at his words, though not for the same reason he probably had in mind.

He turned around in his seat and gazed at each of them in turn.

"You have my condolences." He said softly, bowing his head slightly.

"Thank you." The female said softly, while the male just returned a nod.

The two royals, while they may not have liked their mother as much as the same time previously, appreciated the sentiment, however gruffly it was expressed. It sounded a lot more genuine than the nobles fake sympathies. Some of them hadn't even bothered to hide the victorious glint in their eyes as they offered their ridiculously fake sobbing accounts of how much they regretted that she was gone.

Lelouch had used the time to practice his glare and he felt rather smug that despite being reduced to a size more appropriate for a goblin than a man, his glare had kept some of its lethality. It was the kind of stare that had once caused Diethard to nearly piss himself despite the fact that he was the one with the gun. He couldn't really say that he had achieved the same result, but it wasn't too shabby for a ten year-old.

"I'm sad and angry that it happened. But we must look to the future, not the past." Lelouch answered somewhat coolly in response to Tohdoh's words, who widened his eyes at the response. "The culprit has to be erased from existence of course, but apart from that the only thing we can only do is move on."

It was a rather cold and ruthless response in addition to being unnaturally mature and it chilled the two soldiers to the core. Nunnaly grabbed his hand gently and smiled reassuringly at him, which caused him to return the smile. The conversation was a bit stilted after that, at least until Nunnaly pointed to some rather impressive looking building and commented about it rather animatedly. That cleared some of the air thankfully.

After some time, they arrived at their destination. It was a rather lovely looking house, though nowhere near as grand as houses in Pendragon. Having lived most of her life living in palaces, Nunnaly loved it instantly and she was rather glad that she could see it now. Upon hearing the arrival of the cars, four people came out of the house. Kururugi Genbu, Suzaku as well as Taizo Kirihara and Kaguya Sumeragi. Lelouch did not quite remember this meeting from the past very well.

Neither the tall brown-haired man resembling Suzaku nor the bald tycoon seemed particularly pleased to see them, but Suzaku smiled somewhat shakily and Kaguya offered a cautious nod to both him and Nunnaly.

"Greetings, Prince Lelouch, Princess Nunnaly." The Prime Minister greeted sternly in a booming voice. Lelouch personally did not think that it matched the quality of his adult demon-like voice, but not everyone could be him. "I am the Prime Minister of Japan, Genbu Kururugi."

Genbu bowed somewhat shallowly. Lelouch and Nunnaly matched the bow in about the same depth, causing a bit of surprise on the adults faces. Suzaku just smirked a bit knowingly.

"Thank you for having us here, Mr. Prime Minister." His Britannian friend spoke after returning the bow.

"This is Taizo Kirihara, founder of Kirihara Industries." The Prime Minister spoke, motioning to the other adult. Bows were again exchanged.

"I am Kaguya Sumeragi." The only female jumped in as she smiled slightly, earning reproachful looks from both adults. And after that, finally came the last person.

"I am Suzaku Kururugi." The boy said in surprisingly (in the adults' eyes) good English. "Pleased to meet you."

For the last time, greetings were exchanged. Genbu Kururugi looked pleasantly surprised by his hot-headed son's politeness.

Lelouch smirked as Lord Kirihara seemed to be looking at him calculatingly, as if he saw a puzzle that he couldn't quite decipher.

And speaking of Kirihara, it was high time for Lelouch to found his own corporation, since everyone else seemed to have one. He was somewhat tempted to call it Evil Inc. or something to that effect.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _A bit poor on the comedy this one, but I hope you still like it. I have some rather hilarious thing planned for later though._

 _I hope the bowing customs were not too horribly mangled. The only thing I really know about it is what I read in the internet and some other fics. So, please be gentle. It's my first time. :D (I did that one deliberately)_

 _Charles may be the Emperor, but he is still only one man. He is trapped in a spider web of nobles and industrialists who all want the invasion to happen. And he isn't Lelouch, who is actually insane enough to deliberately contradict a third of the World's population._

 _I hope I wrote Tohdoh well enough. Same for Nunnaly._

 _Though I really don't know his rank at that specific moment, I also don't care enough about it, so I suppose the confusion is put in as a little bit of a joke or sth. It feels somewhat as if I'm referring to Gaddafi (may he rest in peace and all that rot)._

 _I hope you liked this chapter._

 _Imperatia_


	7. Bombs Away

_Greetings,_

 _Don't worry about the OC in the beginning as it'll fairly quickly snap back into Lelouch's perspective. Please enjoy and review._

* * *

It was a day no different from any other, a female noble thought. Her name was Felicity Vinewood and she was the wife of a rather affluent Baron, named Varwick Vinewood. She was still young, specifically in her late twenties, while her husband happened to be a decade older.

She was the very epitome of a Britannian noble, both in name, deed and appearance. Though most people did not believe her to be the most attractive noble in the Empire, she was definitively up there and in the running, what with her beautiful long blonde hair and enchanting light blue eyes.

That is why she was the trophy wife of the rich Baron. She did not particularly love her husband, but neither did she particularly hate or dislike him; their relationship could be perhaps best described as a business arrangement. Her father, the Count of Holliston, was not particularly relevant on the political landscape of the Imperial Court, so he had been unable to successfully court other nobles or form a marriage alliance with any of the other nobles of the same formal rank.

Her husband had been a rather financially successful Baron, but a step down from her father's rank. He hadn't been and still wasn't particularly important either despite his great wealth.

So, a marriage alliance between the two Houses seemed the natural way to proceed.

Felicity lazed around in her bed in the morning, as most female nobles in her position probably did and watched the television. There was not anything particularly interesting for her to view at that particular time, so she settled for watching the morning news on the Pendragon Coyote channel.

The picture showed a rather well-endowed female news anchor.

"...It has still not been confirmed how two of His Majesty's royal guards came to find themselves on the top of the flagpoles in front of the Britannian Farm corporate HQ, here in Pendragon." The raven-haired woman spoke. There was a picture of the tall gleaming white building in question on the left side of the woman (from the viewer's perspective).

The picture quickly expanded in size, taking the whole screen, only to be replaced by a rather amateurish recording, which had been played repeatedly in the news for the past week or so.

One could hear the recorder's breathing in the background as the person started filming. The screen showed the three flagpoles, one bearing the Britannian flag, the second the regional flag of the city of Pendragon and the third the corporate flag of the powerful company in question.

The camera zoomed in on the last two. Unlike what was expected, they did not solely bear the flags in question, but also something that did not actually belong there, such as the two people who seemed to be tied to the tall shafts with a rather thick rope.

There were many people gathered on the pavement in front of the flags as well as several employees from the other side, behind the elaborate silver fence which designated the boundary of the Britannian Farm Company.

As per usual, none of the bystanders bothered to do anything about it, many of them simply stood around, watching, and gossiped about the pitiful guards and those who bothered to bring their cameras or had phones who had cameras (it wasn't a standard feature yet as Touch Phones were still in the process of being invented) filmed the two unfortunate individuals.

"... For the love of God, someone fucking put me down!" One of them chose to express his frustration through anger, putting his fear aside. He flailed around with his head and trashed wildly as much as his restraints allowed him, while shouting various obscenities with his rather foul mouth.

The other was silent and seemed to be trembling, looking around in a rather wild and feral manner. The onlookers also talked about the rather putrid stench in air if one got too close. Three guesses as to what the foul smell was all about.

The good-looking female gave a short giggle at was she was seeing on the television. Oh, but if she had recognized the two particular guard's faces, then perhaps amusement would not be her reaction of choice. But, being the typical noble, she hadn't been paying attention to the people around her. Guards, maids, drivers, servants, and even prestigious commoners such as doctors and lawyers were all beneath her notice and therefore she mostly ignored them, even more than her somewhat less snobbish, but much more politically important husband.

Felicity had long held dreams of being married to His Imperial Majesty, The Holy Britannian Emperor. Of being called Empress Consort. However she was both too timid to approach her ruler on her own and not interesting enough to cause _him_ to approach _her_. And she blamed this inattention on the so-called Fifth Empress, Marianne vi Britannia, the Black Queen. Most of the other Imperial Consorts were jealous of the woman and had spread various unpleasant rumours about her.

That is why Felicity had been rather pleased at her death and even more so at the banishment of her pathetic little children. So pleased that she couldn't hold in the urge to laugh as the commoner Prince had been dragged out of the throne room.

And then, poor, poor Felicity pressed the shut down button on her remote control and finally deemed it necessary to step out of her bed.

And then she promptly tripped on the beautifully decorated brown rug on the side of the large King sized bed. And fell rather nastily face first into the nightstand, gaining a rather large bruise on the right side of her forehead. Well, not really. The bruise would appear later in the day, in a rather unfortunate circumstance which would rather swiftly decrease the chances for the success of their little alliance.

The two nobles would go to a party of a wealthy industrialist by the name of Daniel Brown and other females would notice the subtle swelling, despite the make-up. And the others would spread all sorts of rumours, such as the one about Lord Vinewood beating his wife, Lord Holliston selling his daughter to an abusive man as well as various others.

The rumours would take a life of their own and cause the steady dissolution of their alliance's power. The other nobles would snub both her husband and her father, viewing her as the unfortunate victim. They would eventually refuse to work with them, trade with them; do any sort of business with them.

And eventually, after a few years, poor, poor Felicity would become no better than a commoner in status, her families would be forced to sell most of their assets in order to survive and move away and start a new, simpler life.

And she would come to learn the folly of her beliefs as she would be forced to interact with people who had once been considered to be beneath her in order to help support her family.

All because of one little slip. But ... _which_ one?

* * *

Lelouch smirked amusedly as Kyoshiro Tohdoh once again won his and Suzaku's little spar. It was quite hilarious that his friend was now completely overpowered by his former and current sensei. Suzaku was clearly unused to his small body, which was goblin-like in size and it showed. Tohdoh too had noticed a little bit of his friend's clumsiness, but had probably assumed that his pupil was simply having a bad day.

The former Zero glared at his master in annoyance as he once again ended up on the floor of the little dojo. He also glared at his best friend who sat next to the thin wall on the left of the building. He knew his friend well enough that he could just hear the laughter that his Emperor was probably holding in.

"Shut up, Lelouch." He reprimanded his friend in an annoyed voice, speaking in Japanese. The 99th Emperor adopted a rather innocent looking expression, which made his face look way too harmless to possibly be real.

"I didn't say anything!" answered the Prince, speaking the same language rather flawlessly for a Britannian. His face may have been looked perfectly angelic, but his voice was thick with amusement.

The most annoying thing about it was probably the fact that Lelouch could have perfectly masked it, but he chose to bait him instead. His friend had been spending way too much time with C.C.

The Japanese knight glared at him with a huff and then stood up and faced his teacher.

"Thank you for the lesson, Tohdoh-sensei." He said and then bowed respectfully. The Colonel (or whatever rank he happened to be) nodded and offered a somewhat shallower bow, appropriate for his higher rank as a teacher.

Then the man faced him, Lelouch vi Britannia.

"I could teach you as well, Lelouch-kun." He asked gruffly, having adopted a somewhat less formal way of addressing him. "What do you say?"

The question had been asked after every training so far and the Emperor thought that the man was genuine in his offer. The previous time he suspected that the single offer he had made had been somewhat of a formality and the man hadn't really wanted to do it, so he didn't particularly bother to teach him overly much when he accepted for the sake of competing with Suzaku (as foolish as that notion had been). It only served to embarrass him. Though perhaps he was being too paranoid and it had been meant as an actual lesson and he only took it the wrong way.

Nevertheless, he would again politely refuse the offer.

"I'll leave martial arts to you, _exercise nuts_." He answered amusedly and was unsurprised to see the small smirk on the soldier's face. He was rather pleased to now have a relatively good casual relationship with the infamous man of miracles.

The man seemed unwilling to push him on the issue, other than repeating the offer every time. He appreciated the offer, but didn't feel like he wanted to pursue it. She wasn't present now, but they all had a rather depressed reaction when Nunnaly had in one of the earlier trainings told them that she'd take him up on his offer in her brother's stead if she could walk. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Lelouch still fondly remembered the way his sister would keep running around the gardens and being a general nuisance.

"What about if Britannia invades?" Suzaku asked casually, although he could see concern shining through his eyes. Lelouch had become rather infamous among the Prime Minister's clique for his repeated statement that Japan was going to be invaded.

Unfortunately, most of those who he had tried to subtly convince of the merit of further military preparation thought about him either a stupid child or a Britannian ambassador who wanted to pressure them into giving concessions in order to please his home country. So, that venue quickly became worthless to him.

The problem was that nobody actually listened to him or even _wanted_ to listen. War with Britannia was largely thought to be impossible to win, something unthinkable that people in high places didn't even want to consider possible. No matter what kind of words he used, what examples or proofs he told, what kind of tactics he undertook, they simply _would not_ listen. They had taken to dismissing his attempts without even letting him speak now, which angered him considerably and caused him to stop trying.

Tohdoh had proven his wisdom by not completely following the herd, though he still remained sceptical of his claims, but at least he listened somewhat. Unfortunately, he had yet to earn his fame and as such he was merely a high-ranked foot soldier and martial artist for them.

"If you must know," Lelouch started in somewhat bored tone, facing his friend. "I've taken up jogging."

Suzaku blinked, a bit uncertain if he had heard correctly.

"Huh?!" was his incredibly intelligent query. Lelouch rolled his eyes.

"I'm building up my stamina." He answered at the implied question.

"For running away?" his friend asked teasingly. Another eye-roll was his answer.

"Yes." He confirmed apathetically, surprising both of the others. The eleventh prince was a rather proud individual after all. "I'll kick them in the balls and run."

Tohdoh actually snorted at that. The master sat down on the floor and faced the Emperor. Lelouch shifted somewhat as he knew that the man probably wanted to ask something.

"You told me about Britannia fielding those 'knightmares' as you called them." He asked, trying to disguise his implied query with polite disinterest. Lelouch's amused look perfectly told him that his attempt at subtlety was beyond pathetic. But he answered nonetheless.

"Yes, they will most likely be used in the invasion." He answered. Tohdoh again gave him a somewhat sceptical look.

" _Really_?" he asked in a tone of voice that he rather heavily disliked. After becoming Zero and later the Holy Britannian Emperor, he had become unused to people treating him like a child. As far as he knew, people had probably thought Zero was a middle aged man; at least that was the impression he had wanted to convey with his way of speaking. And nobody thought to treat the Demon Emperor any different than the evil menace that he was, at least after the UFN incident. "As far as I'm aware, the production costs for the Ganymede and Bedivere alone went through the roof."

Lelouch gave him a flat stare. Tohdoh actually squirmed a little, but kept the eye-contact. Then the Black Prince slowly raised an eyebrow, causing red-tint to appear on the other's face. Lelouch was rather proud of still being able to elicit these reactions from people, despite his youth, with nothing but simple stares.

"How will the Holy Britannian Empire be able to afford it?" the former Chief of Military Affairs of The Black Knights asked, having been forced to actually speak the question aloud. Lelouch nodded at the question, which was a reaction the man seemed puzzled at.

What Tohdoh didn't know was that Lelouch was attempting to train him up in the ways of subtlety in order to better fit into the role he would have prepared him to take in the future. Tohdoh happened to be one of the people that Lelouch considered as candidates for the position of Prime Minister of Japan, but for now unfortunately, he seemed a bit too clumsy for it. He did this mostly by making him aware of how he used his words.

"The Ashford Foundation has been forced to the sell the Ganymede and Bedivere Knightmare patents to the Government." He began in a somewhat flat tone. The man seemed nonplussed at his words. "Even though the fee Britannia paid was rather generous, it was still a onetime payment."

Lelouch, after all, had _subtly encouraged_ Charles to give Ashford a good deal. Meaning, he forced him to.

"There are a few large companies, which will compete in order to get the government contract for the mass production of knightmares. Each of them will have to purchase permission to use the patents to develop a mass production prototype." He continued, seeing Tohdoh eye him warily. "This will offset some of the costs."

"There are many companies that will try their luck, but the winner will be Eowyn Imperial Military Armaments Corporation, because it will offer a very low cost mass produced unit while at the same time making it most viable for combat." He told the future Man of Miracles, who widened his eyes, probably surprised at his knowledge and certainty. Lelouch responded with another eye-roll. "The units will be mostly manufactured by robots and the metals and alloys will be mined and created by low-paid Area workers, so the price of each individual unit will get pretty low in order to get the contract, while still allowing a profit."

He looked at the rather startled looking Colonel. If he actually was a colonel at this point, Lelouch wasn't paying attention, so he didn't know.

"Well, not cheap per-say, but not as expensive as you probably think."

"Britannia will try to win the war as quickly as possible, so that it won't have to contract too large a debt." He continued. "And, considering that no significant preparations have been made so far, it will manage to do so."

Tohdoh felt a chill at those words as they seemed to be a rather certain declaration that Japan would fall.

"Why are you telling me all this?" he asked. 'Since you are a Britannian prince,' was the implied, but unspoken statement inside the question.

Lelouch himself seemed puzzled at that, Suzaku though as he watched his friend struggle to come up with an answer. Was it a last ditch effort in order to convince the Japanese administration to prepare; was it to court Tohdoh in order to be able to recruit him later; Was it to simply clear his conscious so that he'd be able to say that he had done all he could?

The problem, in Knight of Zero's mind, seemed to be the fact that he did not believe that Japan could resist successfully a much superior force without a leader of Lelouch's calibre. As much as it pained him to say it, there didn't seem to really be anyone suitable for winning that kind of war in the country's leadership. So, the only hope seemed to be in Charles zi Britannia and his ability to stop the war, which was questionable at the very least. Since he hadn't been paying too much attention and wasn't aware of whom precisely had been involved in convincing the public and most of the nobility that the war was necessary. He also didn't have Geass anymore, so there went that venue.

Lelouch signed as Tohdoh finally left the dojo, leaving the two boys alone.

There was silence for a few moments.

"Do you think there's hope?" Suzaku asked him somewhat hesitantly. For a moment Lelouch eyed him uncertainly, probably trying to decide whether he was referring to the invasion of Japan or the Goa'uld invasion.

"Honestly, I have the feeling that the Collective wants the invasion to happen." His friend told him with some hesitation. "I have a lot of faith in my persuasive skills, but they weren't of any use now, were they? Or is that people in general fail to listen to those they consider beneath them, in this case because of age?"

He glared at his knight somewhat, though the intense gaze had probably not been meant for him in particular, but rather the situation in general.

"Charles is floundering with the situation. He believes that he may have subverted the elements of the nobility that have previously caused the war to proceed, but he is far from certain. And he probably believes that he cannot press the nobles too harshly." Lelouch continued with a grimace of displeasure at that particular last thought. As if he himself cared about the little opinions of some over privileged insects. "Is it that God that is making this happen or is it my own subconscious wish that things proceed in this direction that is unknowingly changing the world?"

Suzaku was quite surprised at the last admission.

"What do you mean?" he asked uncertainly. It was a rather eerie thought.

The 99th Emperor sighed. Why did things have to be so overly difficult and in such an annoying manner, he thought.

"The plans I have made would be optimally effective if things happen in much the same way as they did before. Of course, we will change things as we go along and the more time that passes, more will be different." It was a rather annoying admission to make. After all, he knew Japan and its situation after the invasion very well, he knew at least generally what the occupation would be like, what to change and how to do it, he knew about the most troublesome of the nobles and how to handle them, how to deal with the underworld etc.

It would have been possible to adapt his plan to the specifics of any other Imperial Area, but truthfully he had always been under the assumption that he would begin his work in Japan.

To destroy the world and create it, anew.

* * *

There was a rather unsettling calm in the air, Nunnaly thought. Kaguya had left some time ago with Lord Kirihara for Kyoto, so it was only the three of them. C.C. was probably somewhere in the vicinity as they had met her a few times since their second banishment to this country. It seemed that she was trailing them, both now and in the previous timeline as Suzaku remembered seeing a green haired woman staring creepily at them.

All three of them were together again and they had used that time effectively in order to catch up. Lelouch especially seemed rather pleased to be alive again, even if the current circumstances happened to be rather uncertain.

At the moment they were in the house of the Prime Minister of Japan. The war on Japan had already been declared a day ago. It seems her father was not successful. She was ambivalent in her reaction to that. She was both sad and enraged that something like this had to happen again. Though she should have known better, she had really hoped that Schneizel's words of no other war needing to be fought would prove to be correct. On the other hand, her mistrust of the man she was forced to call father had proven to be correct. Whether the man had simply failed or if he had actually wanted the war to proceed did not matter to her. The war was going to happen, it was unmistakable.

Lelouch had of course blamed himself, as per usual. Nunnaly believed that that particular line of thought was ridiculous. It was true that thanks to his power, there were a few possibilities that he could have pursued in order to either stop the war or win it, but he had done as much as he could have, mostly without using it.

Right now, his abilities were rather limited in scope, so influencing the whole of Britannia's nobility was out completely. The way she imagined it, at that size of scope, the ability was probably limited to subtle influencing, which Charles had probably been doing anyway.

And taking control of a few individuals probably wouldn't have been very effective. She supposed that he could have taken control of Genbu Kururugi and fought the war using him as his proxy, but at what cost? She had faith in his abilities to win it, but how many people would have to be sacrificed needlessly, given the very small amount of preparations that Japan had made?

And speaking of the Prime Minister, the man was dead now. And given the nearly catatonic state that Suzaku had been in, she had connected two and two together. She hadn't wished death on the man, despite the great dislike she felt for him for disregarding her brother's warnings. But she wouldn't judge her friend, feeling no right to do so.

Right now, the three were rather on edge. Lelouch had assured them that he'd be able to detect or even repel any attacks on them, whether by troops or by bombs, but that didn't stop the nerves. But this time, despite the danger, they stayed in the house. Her brother was attempting to distract their best friend from his thoughts by delivering rather acerbic commentary at the japanese cartoon – or anime they were currently watching.

They saw a tall, black haired man, whose best friend had just been killed. He seemed beyond enraged by his death at the hands of the enemy. He started screaming while clenching his fists in a rather unusual posture. It was such a boyish cartoon.

"He seems to be in pain." Lelouch commented while watching, drawing an annoyed, but weary glance from his male friend. "Beware the dangers of constipation."

"Lelouch." Suzaku warned in a bit of tired annoyance. His friend of course disregarded him.

"It's a serious medical condition, Suzaku." The 99th Emperor told him with a stern glare. He nodded seriously to himself. "He's been eating too many dairy products and too few fibres."

Nunnaly couldn't quite contain her giggle, strained though it was, at Lelouch's attempt to use toilet humour in this situation.

Suzaku seemed annoyed, though she considered that an improvement over his previous state.

"He's getting a power-up!" his friend yelled childishly. Lelouch patronizingly shook his head as if he was disappointed in Suzaku.

"Look, his hair is turning blonde from all the exertion!" The Emperor said, pointing regally at the screen. Suzaku glared at him.

"That makes no sense!" he yelled at Lelouch, waving his fist in the air.

"Why would his hair change colour because of his power-up?" Nunnaly asked with confused kindness, taking her brother's side.

"Nunnaly!" her friend said outraged.

At that moment however, things changed. Lelouch suddenly stiffened and looked alert.

"We have to go." He said calmly. There was a brief lull in the air, but soon after, the two boys quickly stood up and Suzaku took the most essential things. Lelouch took Nunnaly on his back and she put her arms around his neck in order to hold on to him.

The two boys quickly got out of the house, startling the few guards, who were present and ran as far away as possible from the building. Suzaku looked back at the house in depression and regret and as soon as he did, a long ranged missile hit into it, levelling it completely.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _I have to admit that this chapter doesn't feel quite right to me._

 _Of course, I hope that you don't share my opinion. To be honest, I wrote myself into a bit of a corner. At the beginning I intended to start in the throne room, but then I changed my mind and thought about starting in the middle of the war, so to skip the need to explain the repeat of the invasion. But I wrote that they returned in 2009 and the invasion actually began in 2010, so ..._

 _If anyone is confused about what Charles was supposed to do. He was supposed to prevent the "news" of Lelouch and Nunnaly's death of getting into any of the mass media by persuading the important people against the war. As soon as that happened, it was game over for Japan, as popular outrage and anger towards Japan practically forced him into declaring war. Compare with Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Nazi invasion of Poland, Pearl Harbour etc. etc, except in this case the event is_ _ **completely**_ _ **made up**_ _. Britannia is not a centrally planned society, so the Emperor doesn't really have a direct hand in what goes in the news and what doesn't, so if a trustworthly source (a noble, a royal, OSI, office of the Emperor etc.) gives such information to a media house, they will present it and therefore cause, indirectly, the invasion._ _The one giving the information would then try to clean up by actually causing the event in question, that is - their death. I hope this makes sense._

 _As I said before, I'm actually not all that sure about this chapter. As I was intentionally moving the events towards the invasion, everything looks rather contrived to me. xD I hope it doesn't feel that way from your end._

 _I should also probably mention the general difficulty of seeing whether or not any of my jokes is actually funny, as I don't generally find that out until I get your reviews. I laugh when I'm reading other people's fanfiction, but I can't seem to laugh at my own humour, even when I find out its working._

 _Anyway, hope you liked it and please review._

 _Imperatia_


	8. Agents Have More Fun

_Greetings,_

 _Yes, my imagination is pretty screwed up. What about it?_

 _EDIT: 8.400+ views at the moment. Most impressive._

 _I have two additional story ideas on my profile right now. I probably won't write them or at least not anytime soon. But perhaps someone else might take the challenge? wink wink hint hint_

 _There was an issue with formatting, but I've fixed that._

* * *

They just couldn't listen to him, Lelouch thought in thinly disguised annoyance. Oh, sure, he was a ten years old, eleven to be soon, but still it had been an unforeseen annoyance when nobody would give him the time of day. Considering that all his arguments had been well thought out, they really should have listened.

Lelouch quite frankly couldn't wait for the time when he'd be faced with one of those so-called Japanese elite in the future just so that'd he'd be able to say to them the words: "I told you so." He smiled in rather malicious manner at the reactions that his words would probably entice. Probably an entirely red face and plenty of enraged shouting. One could only hope.

Unfortunately, this was not the time to think of such things as war was right now in progression. It would not last long, Lelouch knew, even if Tohdoh had some more information up his sleeves, thanks in most part to his own generosity. The colonel (if that really was his rank) was still only one of the many and although he might manage to pull perhaps a victory that would be a bit greater than the so-called miracle he had previously been renowned for, Japan would no doubt still be conquered.

And then, Tohdoh would be put under the inept leadership of General Katase in the Japanese Liberation Front. The good general would be no use at all, since he had been part of the old Japanese military and had therefore inherited a good part of its systemic weaknesses. Those weaknesses were perhaps not too damaging for the military of a unified country, but they'd turn the JLF into pretty much a useless placeholder of a resistance group. Not that this would be too terrible for his own plans.

Right now, the three children were in the process of getting as far away as possible from any of the population centres of Japan. The idea was to stay away from the cities until they've been conquered. Lelouch knew that Tokyo would likely take the longest to annex, since the resistance there might probably be fiercest, being the capital city and all.

For the moment, Lelouch, Nunnaly and his best friend, Suzaku were in the middle of a forest, trying to cross it and reach one of the outlying Japanese safe-houses, in which they had intended to stay for the remainder of the war. In both the previous and the current life, their guards have taken their duty seriously even after having no more official orders to protect them, so they had attempted to drive them as far away towards safety as possible. Unfortunately, they had been attacked during the transportation and their vehicle had been damaged, so the trio proceeded on foot.

This was one of the many reasons why Lelouch had thought that Britannia, or more specifically Charles zi Britannia, had wanted them dead. The 99th Emperor knew now that while his father had been more or less indifferent towards their fate the previous time, he had not really ordered their death or anything else to that effect. So, this must have been one of the nobles with connections to the military or even more likely, the Directorate.

"How far do we still need to go?" Lelouch asked his knight in a polite tone. They had been walking for a pretty long time now and chances were that they were close.  
Suzaku unfortunately had no idea.

"I'm not really sure." He shrugged somewhat helplessly, though his movement was restricted by the fact that he was carrying Nunnaly on his back. "I haven't been through here in a while now, but I'm pretty sure we're still a long way away."

Lelouch grimaced in a sort of an annoyed irritation. Truly, using his power meant that survival was probably not too much of an issue. Right now, Lelouch still had a backpack, filled with Britannian field rations that he had been able to take from the downed would-be assassins, but even in the future, food and water would not be a problem. The Emperor knew that the army would set up various checkpoints along the roads, so he could just steal all of their supplies from afar using his new-found abilities.

He smiled at the idea of stealing their things and leaving them to starvation. It was a thought that brought joy and amusement to his heart. Though he'd of course take care not to say so in present company.

However, he was still somewhat annoyed by how long this was taking. Suzaku had told him that through here they'd be able to reach one of his father's houses. The Kururugi family happened to be one of the Six Houses of Kyoto, so they owned a lot of unnecessary facilities and houses throughout the country. They had passed through several small towns on their departure from the Kururugi home and finally trough Fujiyoshida (city, town, district, whatever that name meant, Lelouch wasn't all that familiar with the old Japan's provinces). Then, after just about leaving the place and driving turning to one of the side roads, they were ambushed.

"Can't you check?" Nunnaly asked after a few moments of silence. Her brother hummed in thought as to how to best accomplish that.

Finally, after a few moments, he thought up a way. He used his control over the world, as limited as it was at the moment, and expanded his consciousness into all the living things in a wide circle around their current location.

Unfortunately, at that moment he discovered something rather annoying and disturbing and that was the fact that they were being followed from a rather long distance away by a large group of what appeared to be Britannian soldiers. The poor little fools had been probably sent by whoever had attacked them the first and second time. That little filthy hobgoblin peasant slave appeared to be nothing if not thorough.

The 99th Emperor focused on what appeared to be the leaders of their little group. The man who was obviously in charge of the party wore a rather stylish grey army uniform, indicating that his rank was at least quite above the average soldier. He probably was somewhere in the middle as far as rank was concerned, high enough to lead a rather large squad a men, but low enough to be outside of leadership rank, where real decisions were made.

His short brown hair gave him a rather military appearance, while the black eye patch made him seem a little like some sort of maverick. That last detail caused Lelouch to somewhat alarmingly conclude that the man possessed a Geass. Considering that they seemed to be rather successful in tracking them from such a distance, it seemed sensible to consider that the power was probably what had allowed them to do so.  
The leader as well as his two seemingly highest ranking soldiers of similar appearance, but without the eye-patch, all gave of the same kind of vibe, suggesting that all three of them may have Geass in their possession. All three of them also showed little change in emotion, adopting a rather cold mask, similar to the one that Rolo had often used.

Lelouch watched for a bit longer as the soldiers climbed over the overgrown roots of the large forest and as the few of them who carried machetes cut down some of the greenery which had inhibited their progress.

As Lelouch released his power, he let out a rather sinister chuckle, causing his two companions to jump somewhat in response.  
Nunnaly looked at him with a bit of uncertainty in her eyes, like she doubted his sanity for a moment there. Lelouch couldn't think of a reason why; he was as sane as anyone else. Didn't she know that laughter was good for the soul?

"What's wrong, big brother?" she asked in a soft, comforting voice as if she thought him a dangerous cornered animal and expected him to flip out right there and then. Lelouch rolled his eyes at her query, but he supposed he had better answer or they'd start jumping to conclusions. Like the Black knights did, the treacherous little bastards. Ugh.

"We are being followed." Lelouch told her demonically after turning to face her, causing her to pale a little bit after seeing his expression. "By dead men."  
"Zombies?!" Suzaku asked rather stupidly. Lelouch stared at him flatly, without blinking, to communicate this opinion to his friend. Finally it got through his thick troll skin and the former Zero blushed a bit.

"Its Britannian soldiers with their _little_ storm trooper imitation armour and their _little_ backpacks that somehow look like some sort of miniaturised trash compactors." The 99th Emperor commented snidely in his high-pitched voice with an expression of great dislike, while his sister and Suzaku looked at him somewhat surprised by the form the explanation took. "And their _dorky little_ helmets that make them look like some kind of retarded astronauts."

Lelouch sneered a little after finishing his explanation, while his friend looked at him with a startled wide-eyed expression as if he had told them something new. He opened his mouth in response, but Lelouch wasn't finished yet.

"All in all, a military uniform that makes you want to stab the wearer in the eyes." The Britannian male concluded, interrupting whatever incredibly wise thing his idiotic friend probably wanted to say.

Suzaku looked at him for a few minutes and opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. How very eloquent of him. Not very surprising though.

"So, soldiers are following us?" Nunnaly asked gently, considering Suzaku's less than talkative state.

"Hey, I wore that armour!" his friend interrupted his answer in unexplainable outrage, turning towards him fully. Lelouch glared at him in annoyance, wondering why that was even important in this particular conversation.

"I assure you, the urge did not subside once I saw you in it." The 99th Emperor answered derisively. "If anything, it increased."

Lelouch then shook his head to put an end to that fruitless discussion. After all, everyone knew that he was the one in the right, so it'd do nobody any good to continue prattling on about it.

"Yes." He confirmed to his sister, who looked from behind Suzaku's shoulder, in a rather apathetic voice. "A large group. Probably around twenty. They're here to kill us, most likely."

It was probably somewhat unsettling for her to be told all that, judging by her slightly distressed expression, but Lelouch did not think it would be prudent to embellish things to her this time around. He had seen how well _that_ particular strategy had worked out. His sister had been manipulated by everyone that she came across as soon as she had been returned to Britannia. Besides, she had her illusions shattered a while ago.

The 99th Emperor sighed and turned around and towards the direction that the assassins were slowly approaching.

"What do you want to do?" Suzaku asked him firmly, his determined look suggesting that'd do whatever was necessary. How novel. Not too long ago his friend had been questioning his every decision that he had ever made in his life. He supposed he shouldn't complain.

Lelouch gave him an imperious look, which looked odd on his childish face.

"We eliminate them of course." He told his friend as he believed that to be the only logical option. Nunnaly didn't seem to like it, but she also didn't bother to say anything against it, having been hardened by loss and war like the rest of them.

Suzaku nodded slowly in response.

"How are we supposed to do that?" He asked his friend. Now that was the kind of question that Lelouch could get behind of, so he made sure to nod approvingly. He was annoyed by all the stupid questions beginning with who, what, when and why. Basically all other questions, when you thought about it. But this one in particular was rather simple to answer.

"Leave that to me." The Devil told his friend and his sister in the most sinister voice he was capable of producing as a child. "I assure you that by the time I've finished with them, even the most prestigious hospital on Saint Darwin Street won't be able to save them."

The diabolical statement was accompanied by an eerily dark smile which seemed to contain all the evil in the world.

* * *

Private Sanderson was a rather new addition to the Britannian army. He had enlisted a year ago because of the opportunities and stability inherent to army service and had been pushed through intensive training at the Drupert Academy in Maryland.

He differed slightly in appearance from most other soldiers in the fact that he had kept his blonde hair to the maximum allowed length, though it wasn't all that apparent at the moment since he, like the rest of his platoon, was right now wearing his helmet, which was sort of required in the midst of the war.

Army life was not at all what he had imagined. What he had thought would happen was that he and his comrades would actually be fighting with someone, as one might happen to assume, considering that they were a part of the invading army. Unfortunately, they had been assigned to a Lieutenant Whitford, a rather creepy bastard who apparently believed that fighting the country that had brutally murdered members of the Imperial Family was not all that important next to the opportunity to study the local flora and fauna.

So, here they were, following their rather unsettling looking commanding officer and his equally creepy stooges through a random forest in the middle of nowhere. It had been roughly four hours ago since they had separated from the rest of their force which had just taken a place called Gotemba or some-such, he really had trouble remembering any of the names. They had separated a bit later on, leading the soldier to suspect that this wasn't really a sanctioned mission. Unfortunately, questioning one's superiors happened to be one of the very best ways on how to get punished really quickly and latrine duty was not even the worst on the list.

So, right now he walked through the rather creepily quiet, as well as quite overgrown forest which they had entered from one of the local roads and tried to avoid things hitting him in the face. He had difficulty climbing over one particularly large root, so one of the soldiers ahead of him offered him a hand, which he gratefully accepted.

He grunted in exertion as he climbed over it and crashed a little bit unsteadily on the other side of the root. He panted slightly and took a look around the place. Most of the other soldiers were in front of him with only a few more coming in from behind.

He looked to the left of his group and his eyes came across a rather particularly thick tree trunk, which appeared to be split in the middle and looked like it continued into two different trees. And as he looked in the midst of those trees his eyes-widened as he came across a horrifying sight.

Skulls. Human skulls, several of them that seemed to be put on top of each other in a rather haphazard manner, showing for all to see the vicious soulless smiles of the dead as well as the ever so slight signs of dried blood on them.

He paled, his face turning ashen white, though one could not really see it through his helmet. His heartbeat sped up significantly in that one instant and he had to try really hard in order regain his composure, breathing slowly, inhaling and exhaling repeatedly.

When he looked back to that tree, they weren't there anymore. There were no skulls in sight. Somehow, this didn't reassure him one bit. He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down.

"C-Come on, we have to keep going." he told to his companions, pointing to their commanding officer who seemed to be a bit further into the forest, his anxiety not really entirely concealed in his voice. The others seemed distracted as well, judging by their shaky movements though he couldn't really be sure. He wondered what they might have seen.

But this was not a time for hesitation. The sooner they got out of the forest, the sooner they'd be done with all this. But in order to do that, they needed to find or do whatever Lieutenant Whitford wanted them here for. Quite a few unsettling possiblities entered his mind, but he shook his head trying to get rid of them.

He felt the distinct need to go and talk with one of his comrades to calm his nerves just a little bit, but unfortunately, due to their helmets and his resulting confusion as to who is who, he became unable to do this. Also, the tense atmosfere did not really feel very conductive for conversation.

So, he made his way deeper into the forest instead.

He tensed slightly as one of the commander's two minions looked over him for a moment, his eerily emotionless expression making him uneasy.

The tension in the group was palpable and nobody seemed brave enough to break it or in the Lieutenant's case, didn't seem to care enough to do it. Sanderson wasn't really sure if the commander had even detected it as he seemed to act the same as ever.

The platoon of soldiers continued towards their target, whatever that might have been, and only took a few short breaks, which seemed to end as soon as they started.

During that time, the Private had allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. Since some time had passed since his hallucination or whatever that had been, it became easier to dismiss it and put it out of his mind.

And then, just as he had breathed a sigh of relief and inwardly reassured himself that nothing was amiss, they came across a rather beat-up looking wooden board, secured to a pole which had been stuck deep into the dirt beneath it.

The place which they were in at that moment seemed flatter than the previous locations and the tall trees seemed to have more space between it, allowing for easier passage.

As they approach the board, which looked rather like a warning sign, the Private could see that the larger part of the board had been written in those Japanese hieroglyphs, but there were three separate parts underneath it, each presumably in it's own language.

"What does it say?" One of the other soldiers asked from behind him, making him jump a little. He breathed out in irritation.  
One of the stooges approached the board and leaned down in order to read it.

"Your life is precious." The man read in a cold emotionless tone before dismissing the words and heading forward. The other two higher ranking persons followed him, looking as apathetic as ever.

Private Sanderson stayed put, unable to move at that moment. His blood seemed to have turned into ice, understanding the words as the thinly veiled threat that they were. The other soldiers didn't seem to be much better.

"Follow." The Lieutenant said in a cold unrelenting voice after it became obvious that the others weren't moving. Sanderson really didn't want to follow the others, but it became apparent that had no other choice as the others started moving towards the commander.

He gulped. He felt as if their leader was taking them to the slaughterhouse.

After a few moments of walking, he heard an unearthly shriek in front of him and his heart nearly stopped in response. He realised that it was one of his fellow soldiers, who was right now on the floor trying to get free of something that looked alarmingly like a naked woman from afar.

As he approached, he came to a realisation. It was a blow-up doll.

What?

He nearly had another heart attack when his comrade pushed the doll off himself and he saw "her" face.

* * *

Lelouch snickered as he heard the girlish shrieks when the other soldiers looked just what his harmless little doll looked like. He had made her face look like the face he had seen in the latest jump scare video.

He hadn't been particularly pleased about it then, but he supposed it was now a good thing that he had seen it.

Unfortunately, the three Directorate agents hadn't seemed to be affected by any of the tricks that he had played on them. It would appear that the little maggot, V.V. had messed with their minds enough to make them unable to recognize social cues or any signs of danger.

He laughed delightedly as a most amusing idea came to mind, causing his already weary companions to give him another look. Yes, it would be an amazing and horrible coincidence if that happened.

"So, we're just going to wait here for them?" Suzaku asked after a few moments of silence. Lelouch nodded distractedly.

They waited. They waited. They waited and they waited.

And then, the soldiers finally came. The trio of children had stopped next to some kind of small stream running through the forest and they waited for the rather unintelligent looking goons to come from the other side.

"Well, took you long enough." Lelouch commented amusedly, looking as at the very least the soldiers seemed appropriately terrified. After all, he had made sure that the things that they "saw" in the forest were creepy enough, what with the disappearing human bones, creepy dolls dropping from the trees and the terrible singing. He was especially proud of that one, having made an imitation of Clovis singing in his shower. It sounded just horrifying enough to include.

"We finally found you!" The Lieutenant said, faking a relieved smile in such an abhorrent display of terrible acting that the 99th Emperor actually cringed a little. Oh yes, he definitely must have been a Directorate agent as nobody else would probably suck quite as much.

"Your father has been worried about you!" his "friend" next to him said in a mock-scolding manner, probably attempting to sound like some sort of admonishing guardian. What he really resembled was a serial killer. Some of the soldiers seemed to agree as they inched away from him.

"We're here to take you back to him." The third one didn't even attempt any acting and instead said those words in a cold emotionless tone, which accompanied by his menacing look completed the trio's bad impression quite nicely.

Most excellent. A child molester, a serial killer and some sort of evil dark lord. Oh, well, at the very least he still had a nose.

Lelouch snorted incredously at the three and his two child companions seem to agree as they watched them warily.

"I don't think so:" He told them, amusement practically dripping from his words. He shook his head.

"I think you're actually here to kill us." He told the conversationally and he watched as the first two allowed their rather pathetic masks to fall. He snorted at how quickly they gave up.

"Fine, very well then." Their leader sneered evilly, which at least looked somewhat genuine on his face, though it also made him look a little like some sort of evil constipated rat.

"Soldiers, take aim!" He shouted in what Lelouch assumed was probably meant to sound commanding. The soldiers seemed to hesitate, which surprised the Demon given how eager Cornelia's army had been to obey genocidal orders.

But eventually, even they, or most of them, with the exception of three, maybe four (that last one didn't seem to be able to decide whether to do it or not) obediently aimed their little rifles at them.

It was at that moment that Lelouch then decided that the time for jokes is over and he signaled this by adopting a rather evil looking smile.

The Emperor used his reality changing ability and made the rifle in the hands of the soldier directly behind the highest ranking soldier feel smouldering hot.

The poor man's trash compactor imitation of a super soldier dropped the gun with a loud yelp, startling all of the soldiers, causing a few of them start firing wildly around them.

This caused one of the soldiers to be hit in the foot by a gunshot which caused him to drop to the ground and scream out wildly and further startle his comrades. They, in turn started waving their guns wildly around in the search of a hidden enemy.

Then, Lelouch stopped the fall of the first soldier's rifle and caused it to remain in the unlikely position of remaining upright and pointed towards the sky.

He chuckled evilly at what was to come, causing a few of the soldiers to startle and point their guns in his direction, a few of them firing but only hitting the invisible wall he hastily put between the two groups.

Then, he used his power and caused an invisible force to push the commander backward, which caused him to start falling on his back. He then this the same to his legs and slowed down time for a moment in order to correct his position to be appropriate for someone who was using a toilet. As well as to cause the Lieutenants center of gravity to be positioned precisely over the conveniently positioned rifle.

Then he simply waited as the barrel of the gun inserted itself into a certain orifice of the poor, poor commander, breaking through the fabric of his military-issued pants and underwear.

He almost giggled as he finally got a reaction out of the emotionless Directorate agent which was a rather startled and pained shriek which seemed to cause all of the birds in the vicinity to fly away in that instant.

Everyone seemed to stop and watch in horrified fascination as the good Lieutenant looked to be doing _things_ with his underling's rifle.  
Lelouch didn't let him get off of it either, constantly applying enough force to keep him down.

"Ew." He then heard his lovely little sister say.

This nearly caused his heart to stop from the horrified realisation.

His sister.

She had seen all of that.

"Suzaku, COVER HER EYES AT ONCE!" Lelouch screamed madly at his friend/subordinate and Lord Kururugi was too startled not to obey him, covering Nunnaly's eyes practically instantly.

"But I've already seen it!" Nunnaly protested, but nobody listened to her.

Lelouch gritted his teeth in burning righteous anger.

"This is unforgivable." Lelouch's cold whisper lashed brutally, like a whip in the wind, causing some people to flinch. "Not only did you look at my sister with evil intent and pointed your weapons at her, but you also proceeded to do immoral things right here in front of her."

"But you were the one who made him do it!" Suzaku disagreed loudly, still covering Nunnaly's eyes though she tried to resist.

"LIAR!" Lelouch shouted at his friend, outraged by the malicious accusation. Then he sighed and turned back to his enemies, shaking his head disappointedly.

"Prepare to meet your maker!" he said pompously in an overly cliche manner and waved his hand high above his head, causing a rather exquisite, as well as large, gold-decorated piano to appear in the air, high above the soldiers.

The heavy musical instrument crashed down hard on half the soldiers with extreme force, crushing one of the agents as well as probably eight soldiers under it's weight while accidentally sounding some off-key musical sounds. It probably killed them too.

Lelouch chuckled maliciously as the survivors tried to to work together in order to lift the ridiculously large piano off their comrades.

The only still unharmed Directorate employee, the one who didn't bother trying to act upon meeting them tried to get the rifle out of his master's rectum or his rectum off the rifle, but his boss had apparently become too attached to his new toy so his attempts proved to be unsuccessful.

Soon he realised this and quickly activated his Geass and rushed with unholy speed towards the ten-year old Prince.

"Die!" the Directorate agent hissed.

Lelouch was somewhat startled by this, but as the invisible wall had already been placed previously, the agent didn't succeed in anything except hitting the wall with high velocity and probably breaking all of his teeth as well as hopefully some of his bones. So the man simply slid off the wall like a swatted fly would and feel into the stream.

Lelouch simply shook his head.

He then focused on his connection with the World of C and forcefully severed their contracts, taking away their power, which caused them to cry out in pain, though in both remaining cases it was rather muffled considering they had already been damaged significantly.

"Hey, that piano looks familiar." Nunnaly commented, surprising Lelouch. He glared venomously at his useless knight for having allowed her to free her eyes from his hands.

"It should." He told her in amusement after he had finished mentally murdering Suzaku a few times. "I stole it from Guinevere's mother."

Nunnaly made a surprised O with her mouth. Lelouch glared at Suzaku again and the knight got the cue and covered her eyes again despite her violent protest. He was pretty sure that she had managed to punch him in the balls as well as the Zero had a rather pinched expression on his face and the Emperor suspected that the next sound from his throat would probably be alarmingly high-pitched.

But he ignored all this and focused on the violently cursing soldiers on the other side of the stream.

"What the fuck is wrong with this place?" one of the still living walking trash compactors shouted and released a couple of curses worthy of a sailor.

Lelouch narrowed his eyes at this. There would be _no_ cursing in front of Nunnaly.

So, he materialised a couple more of those alarmingly scary blow-up dolls and positioned them on all the possible exits.

Then he made them rise up and gave them some basic instructions, kind of a basic AI (artificial intelligence) of sorts really, in essence telling them to kill the remaining soldiers. That would teach them.

If the stupid soldiers wouldn't run away after all of that, then maybe they deserved to bite it.

The blow-up dolls marched towards the soldiers with zombie-like slowness, but the idiots still didn't notice them.

Then Lelouch gave another gift to his precious little minions of hell, the gift of speech. Well, the gift of screech really as their "voices" proved to be quite horrifying and they were soon joined by the terrified shouting of the soldiers.

Only three managed to escape, the three that hadn't aimed at them and that was because he allowed them to. So private Sanderson and two others ran like the wind towards salvation in the form of their military truck like the Devil himself was running after them.

Close, but running after people was _too plebeian_ , Lelouch thought, so he wouldn't actually do it. In the meantime the blow-up dolls had managed to overwhelm the rest of the platoon, since the stupid bastards had managed to expend their clips on Lelouch, air and each-other and they hadn't exactly had the time to reload.

But, as the Devil watched his creepy dolls tear the enemy apart, he thought that maybe this was enough for now.  
"Maybe I should return this." he spoke aloud calmly as he looked at the golden piano which now looked rather like some sort of old ruined furniture.

* * *

In the Imperial City of Pendragon, Saint Darwin Street, or more specifically the Imperial palace where Guinevere, her mother and various other family members and friends resided, the guards were having a little bit of a problem.

Well, that was an understatement really, as the Empress Consort's precious golden piano had simply vanished into thin air. Literally vanished. One moment it was there and the next, it was gone.

The guards, especially the guard captain, were panicking as their elderly master absolutely adored that instrument and would probably have all of their heads for losing it.

But, they needn't have feared, for in that next moment their master's precious piano crashed through the roof, leaving a gaping hole in it, and landed on the exact spot where it had been before.

The others felt faint as they looked at the ruined roof and at the half destroyed piano which seemed to drip a red liquid from it's every pore, making it seem more red than gold. There were also various bits of what looked like bloodied human remains underneath it.

Only a horrifying screech snapped them out of their revelry and they looked in horror as a severely bloodied blow-up doll seemed to climb out of the piano and attempted to attack them.

Thankfully, they were armed.

This would later become known as The Pendragon Killer Piano incident, though the exact details never became known to the greater public.

* * *

The trio of kids finally arrived at the other Kururugi safe-house and were slightly surprised to see a military style truck already parked in the small space in front of the home.

As Suzaku attempted to open the door, he saw that it had already been unlocked.

He stepped through and came across the unusual sight of C.C. and Sayoko looking at each-other warily. They seemed to be playing cards.

"Oh, you're back." the immortal said apathetically, but the ninja proceeded to stand up and give them respectful greetings

"Lelouch-sama." Sayoko started apologetically as she gave another deep bow. "I'm afraid to say that this house doesn't have all that many supplies and there seemed to be none in the truck that I took."

"We'll have enough for a few days, but we'll have to find more if we want to wait here until the war has been concluded." She finished rather meekly.

Lelouch looked at her with a bit of wonder. She seemed to look quite a bit younger, though the sharp look was still present. She also looked like she was expecting punishment.

"Don't worry, Sayoko." Lelouch waved her off, causing her to look up. He then smirked. "Besides, there happens to be plenty of Britannian soldiers around."

His eyes seemed to glint as Sayoko faced him.

"Our need is greater than theirs. Let's go and relieve them of their things."

* * *

 **AN:**

 _The first time things obviously proceeded differently. There was that scene with climbing the hill, walking among the countless bodies and next to that truck, but I chose to do it differently. Also, as far as I know from my limited knowledge, the Kururugi house was supposed to be somewhere underneath Mount Fuji. I mention this as I remember that in The Prepared Rebelllion v2 the trio seemed to come from an entirely different direction, to my puzzlement. In this story, the house is north of mount Fuji, they drive through some small towns and through a large town, then they get attacked, the car gets wrecked on some sideway and they proceed on foot the rest of the way through some forest. I hope it doesn't sound too ridiculous. The forest is NOT the suicide forest of Japan, it's just LL making it feel similar._

 _Poor Guinevere's mum._

 _I like this chapter in general, though perhaps the OC bit was a bit unnecessary and might kill the pacing. Maybe next time draw the entire scene from LL's god point of view._

 _I don't know about you, but I could barely eat my lunch because of that piano scene, you know when it disappears and then returns, dripping blood and bits of human on it. I also though about either throwing the piano on Guinevere's car or down the stairs in the villa where the mum would run away from it and it would crush several more people._

 _I did not forget about V.V. possibly sensing the break of the contract, though it may have appeared that way as I hadn't mentioned the problem yet._

 _Do you have any fanfic recommendations, where the story in question would be more about politics? And I don't mean the stupid type of: I am heir to everyone important and 20 others. That's not politics, it's just naivete._

 _Hope you like it and please review._

 _Imperatia_


	9. Occupation Is Upon Us

_Greetings,_

 _I had a really smartass thing that I wanted to write here. Unfortunately, I no longer remember it. Too bad._

 _Also, 10k+ views._

* * *

A Lieutenant Colonel Gibbson of the Britannian Imperial Army was stationed at the town of Gotenba, in a small field camp that the army had commissioned for their use. The main force had proceeded forward, but his relatively small force had remained in place.

Right now, they had a rather unconventional problem.

A field commander, called Lieutenant Whitford, had separated from the main force and went to parts unknown, dragging his entire platoon along with him. It was obviously an unauthorised mission, whatever it was, as there were no such orders from any of the Generals, nor from the OSI or the Imperial family or anyone else who had such authority.

"My lord, we just received a report from a Private Sanderson, Private Lyn and Private Homero." One of his lower ranking subordinates told him. The commander glared at the man, unable to see why that would interest him.

"Well, my lord, it appears that Lieutenant Whitford took them on some wild goose chase in a forest near Tsuru." The low ranked flunky told him. "What I managed to get out of their incoherent babbling is that they Whitford wanted to kill three small children."

The commander raised his both of his eyebrows at that.

"The soldiers said something about a piano, sex dolls and a cursed forest:" The subordinate continued, confusing his commanding officer even further. "If we are to believe their testimony, they are the only ones remaining."

Gibbson took a few moments to process this information.

"What of Whitford?" he finally asked, a little bit afraid of what else he was going to learn.

"According to Private Sanderson, he appears to have accidentally sodomized himself." The Flunky explained, carefully attempting to keep his voice neutral, but there was still some incredulity in it.

"What." the Lieutenant Colonel asked flatly, his brain shutting down for a moment.

"With a rifle, my lord." The subordinate continued.

"What."

* * *

The Imperial Princess, Euphemia li Britannia walked in a slow procession that followed the empty coffins, which were supposed to contain the bodies of her siblings, Lelouch and Nunnaly. Though she knew that they were alive and well, even if trapped within enemy territory, she couldn't help but be affected by the morose mood in the capital.

The twin coffins were carried by some of Lady Marianne's remaining retainers, dressed in black suits, while the others followed behind on foot. They were in Saint Darwin Street, specifically a part of it where traffic was mostly discouraged anyway and they were heading towards the Imperial palace, particularly a chamber where father usually addressed the nation behind a lectern.

She couldn't help but wonder just what kind of speech it was going to be.

She walked in silence, dressed in a beautiful black gown, while her elder sister, Cornelia walked beside her, clothed similarly. The soon to be Goddess of Victory seemed to have done her usual and transformed her sorrow into anger instead as she was clenching her fists tightly and wore a particularly angry expression, mixed with sadness.

Euphemia did not think that this was a good way of dealing with things, but right now she couldn't say anything. She stepped closer to her sister and gently grabbed her hand and held it. Cornelia gazed at her and forced herself to calm down a bit, giving her a tentative smile.

In front of her walked her eldest brothers, Odysseus and Schneizel. Odysseus was a kind soul, who was always sad when something bad happened, especially when that something concerned his family. So it was really no surprise to see him shed tears on this day.

Schneizel too seemed especially grim these days, unsurprising, given the fact that Lelouch had probably been his favourite sibling. Though their positive relationship had not carried through the last time, given Lelouch's rebellion and Euphemia was unsure at what had changed her older brother.

Was it Lelouch's supposed death right now? Was it increased responsibilities? His own nature? Father? Clovis' and/or her own death? Learning that Lelouch had killed members of the Imperial family?

For that matter, what was it that it had caused Clovis' madness in Shinjuku, Euphemia thought as she looked at the depressed looking blonde boy walking behind her.

She wasn't so naïve any-more or so arrogant that she would believe that she could change _everything_ for the better, like she did last time. But maybe, just maybe, she could change and help heal her own dysfunctional family.

It was not incompatible with her other two objectives, after all. Lelouch had asked her to report to him what the Imperial family was thinking or talking about, while her father said that she try to keep her family together, perhaps by uniting them against him, a common enemy, in order to keep anything like the Emblem of Blood from repeating itself ever again.

Finally, after a long and distracted walk, they arrived in the chamber. Father, who had been driven in a carriage, just behind the other royals and surrounded by guards, walked towards the lectern on top of the podium.

Behind the podium was a very large picture of both Lelouch and Nunnaly, both of them standing together in front of a rose garden, wearing happy smiles. Both behind the podium and in front of it, where the empty coffins were located, was an entire forest of beautiful flowers of all possible colours, completing the absolutely heart-breaking scene.

Cornelia, in addition to several others, could not quite contain her sob.

"His Imperial Majesty, The 98th Emperor will now present his condolences."

After that announcement, her father was finally standing behind the lectern, while the other royals sat on both sides of the podium. There were quite a lot of them, Euphemia knew, but only those closest to the vi Britannia family and those closest in line to the throne were present there. Those two categories overlapped in quite a few cases.

She dearly hoped that her father's speech would be tasteful, but given his previous track record, the chances were not good.

"All men are not created equal!" Her father roared loudly into the completely silent chamber. Well, that didn't bode very well for that thought.

"Some are born swift of foot, others are born clumsy. Some are born in rich families, while others barely survive their inferior birth." He continued. She rather disliked this particular start of a speech, but it was one that Charles had often used. "All men are, thus, inherently different."

Then, her father took a deep breath.

"To kill even a _single_ member of the Imperial Family is to us, Britannians, a most unforgivable sin." He boomed, though his voice seemed much darker now. "A sin, that must and will, _inevitably_ , be repaid a thousand fold."

The chamber reverberated with the sound of the Emperor of Britannia forcefully hitting the lectern.

There was a sort of sinister silence in the chamber. Euphemia took a shaky breath at the ominous feeling and several other people seemed to be doing the same thing.

"Similarly, all of those who would plot, against the Imperial Family or even a _single_ of its members, shall receive Our most _dire_ punishment, regardless of what power they might _think_ that they possess." Her father continued. It was most unlike his other speeches now and the 3rd Princess could understand just what that last bit was. A thinly disguised threat, directed to both elements of nobility and the world at large.

She looked down from the podium and noticed that a few members of the high nobility, who naturally occupied the front lines, seemed to have turned to a shade of a rather unhealthy white. She resolved to commit those particular faces to memory.

"It's two members, Lelouch and Nunnaly, have been taken from us much too soon." He continued, drawing a slight gasp from Schneizel of all people, the man who never seemed to react to anything. Euphemia thought it was because of the direct expression of mourning, which the Emperor generally did not do. "Before they had even the slightest chance to demonstrate to the world the inherent overwhelming superiority of the Britannian people."

Again, he took a deep breath and Euphemia gulped, sitting at the edge of her seat, as her father seemed to be preparing for something.

"Either of them could have made a _most_ excellent Emperor for Britannia."

Those words seemed to spread like a shockwave across the chamber and probably across Saint Darwin Street and the rest of Britannia as well.

Coming from the eternally displeased Emperor, those words were practically a ringing endorsement, a declaration of succession. And Euphemia knew why he was doing this. God had chosen Lelouch as the leader of the efforts against the alien threat, so her father accounted for that by making his or Nunnaly's potential ascension easier.

If those words had been spoken while her siblings were still alive, they would have immediately been considered his heirs. Now that they were considered dead, it was a somewhat subtle move to make the possibility of their rule easier to swallow for both their family and the rest of the nobility in the future, once they would return.

"But make no mistake, with or without them, Britannia shall move forward!" Charles roared then, scaring the chamber out of its shell-shocked state, making more than one person jump in response, including her sister. "We will plunder, compete, conquer and dominate."

"And in the end, the future shall be ours!"

"ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!"

Euphemia smiled tearfully in response as the entire nation seemed to respond to his call. For father, that particular speech was quite nice actually. Certainly much better than what Clovis had received last time.

And through its shock-inducing qualities, she could detect Lelouch's influence in it as well. She did not think that her brother had written it either. Maybe the two were simply rubbing off each-other a little.

* * *

But unlike what most of Britannia thought, Lelouch and Nunnaly were still very much alive and they and their compatriots were in the process of what was quickly becoming one of the 99th Emperor's favourite activities.

Robbing Britannian soldiers of all that they were worth.

In the small town of Tsuru, the army had sequestrated the Japanese civilians and disarmed and captured combatants into the largest public buildings, though many of them also probably remained hidden from them.

Most of the rest of the place was therefore populated with invading soldiers and army contractors.

The Prince smiled maliciously as he looked from afar at the Gas station that they were currently steadily approaching in their stolen truck. The Britannian army had appropriated the small building from its owner and seized all of the supplies in it. As far as Lelouch was concerned that was pretty much a more verbose way of saying that they stole it, so even if Lelouch were even slightly inclined to feel bad about stealing from the army (Heh, as if!), he could just remember that they stole it first.

As they approached the building (which the army had pretty much surrounded with barbed wire, ensuring that people would only be able to get by it by driving past it on the road), the few soldiers waved at them to stop.

C.C., who was in the front, driving the vehicle, complied and slowed down the truck, stopping just beside one of the soldiers.

"You seem to be Britannians." the man who appeared to be in charge said calmly in an official voice. "Who are you and where are you going?"

Just as C.C. was about to answer, Lelouch decided to activate his acting skills.

"Britannian soldiers? Thank God!" He said in his high-pitched voice, playing the part of a scared child who was just happy to see a friendly face. "We were caught up in the war and were holed up. We just drove past a few dead soldiers!"

The soldier blinked, surprised by the appearance of a small boy in the passenger seat.

"Dead soldiers?" He asked with a little bit of confusion, though his face started slowly changing into realisation. "Britannian soldiers?"

"Yes." Lelouch nodded with his most angelic face, but then his expression slowly morphed into one of pure evil. " _You_ guys."

The soldier only had enough time to widen his eyes before he was shot in the face by C.C.'s shotgun and blown into the barbed wire.

Lelouch watched in some humour as the three other soldiers fumbled with their rifles. He had been a nice, good person and had made the three weapons extra slippery, so to all appearances, it looked like they were attempting to visualy present some sort of a masturbation metaphor.

C.C. sighed in response to his antics and shook her head.

"And here I was, ready to make up a sob story." She said, pouting a little bit in annoyance. Lelouch simply smirked up at her, causing her to roll her eyes in response.

She powered down her car and the two slowly opened their doors.

The three soldiers had meanwhile remembered that they had another weapon and they scrambled for their standard military-issued pistols.

Lelouch smiled amusedly as they pointed their little guns in his face. He snapped his fingers and the pistols were replaced with different objects. The man in the middle now had a banana, the man on the right an electric toothbrush and the one on the left a toy dinosaur.

There was silence for a few moments, until the right-winger pressed and turned on his electric toothbrush and the air was filled with quiet droning.

"I'm so scared now, guys." Lelouch told them sarcastically and then faced the immortal witch, who was now on his left. "Aren't you, C.C.?"

" _Terrified_." The Empress dead-panned, looking at the soldiers condescendingly. She seemed to look down on them so much, that's she was almost looking up.

The soldiers threw their useless items away and their leader, or at least the guy in the middle, clenched his fists and _menacingly_ approached the two.

Lelouch snorted at his unsuccessful attempt at appearing threatening, but then C.C. pushed him to the side and stepped forward, causing him to look at her in puzzlement.

He then watched in undisguised amazement mixed with glee as his witch proceeded to do a rather spectacularly one-sided beat-down on the three soldiers, involving some absolutely vicious kicks and one really hard groin stomp on the guy with the toothbrush.

"That was rather hot." Lelouch commented, nodding approvingly as he looked at her approach. "I didn't know you knew martial arts."

"You're too young to be thinking of such things." C.C. smirked as she patted him on the cheek patronizingly, causing him to scowl in annoyance at her comment.

" _Witch."_ He spat the word like a curse, though it must have sounded rather comical in his childlike voice as she smirked at him once again.

"I'm not into paedophilia, so if I'm going to be deprived, I might as well make fun of you for it." She told him in an amused voice, while he glared at her a bit.

"C.C., you are so old that _any_ relationship is paedophilia for you." He responded spitefully. "And those that aren't, are necrophilia instead."

"Hush, _little boy_." She told him condescendingly, putting a finger on his lips while he narrowed his eyes at her, no doubt looking _very_ threatening.

Unfortunately, the Britannian troops had already carried most of the stuff away, Lelouch scowled in annoyance. The puny little bastards only left a few military field rations, a little bit of extra food (some half dried vegetables and a few cans) and a package of alien airheads.

The Emperor tore apart the package and angrily jammed at few of the sweets in his mouth, chewing them with narrowed eyes. Perhaps it could be described as anger eating.

"You okay in there?" C.C. asked apathetically from outside the gas station. Lelouch scowled again and continued chewing.

Finally, she decided to entered the building and looked with widened eyes at him, sitting on top of the counter, glaring at the wall and putting a full fist of candy into his mouth.

Once she finally managed to get him to get back into the truck, the two proceeded further into the town. Lelouch had lost some of his annoyance and was now looking amused at some of the soldiers that were attempting to stop them.

"Keep driving." he instructed to his friend as the men kept signalling to them to stop. C.C. raised her eyebrows, but complied.

A few soldiers in the middle of the road attempted to jump away from the rapidly approaching vehicle, but Lelouch smirked.

"Now, now, we can't have that." He spoke smugly and used his power to attach invisible strings to the two soldiers and pulled them underneath the wheels, causing a few bumps and crunching noises from underneath the car.

"You seem to really hate Britannian troops." The witch commented in a rather apathetic voice.

"Whatever gave you _that_ idea?" The Emperor asked her humorously with comically raised eyebrows as the truck drove away, while some troops kept firing from behind. Thankfully, a well placed shield protected the truck from being hit in anything vital.

C.C. raised an eyebrow at him, though her focus quickly returned on the road where she _accidentally_ ran over another screaming soldier, causing Lelouch to snicker.

" _Well_ , during the Zero Requiem you enslaved most of them and then you sent them in human waves towards the FLEIA. You killed your own ground troops with the volcano eruption. That's all in addition to the all you killed as Zero and right now, in this life." C.C. explained "patiently" with a long-suffering tone. Lelouch simply smirked at her, leaving the question unanswered.

"Hey, C.C., do you know how many Britannian soldiers it takes to bring lunch to the Emperor?" He asked the immortal empress in a somewhat amused tone, starting another one of his terrible jokes.

"No, how many?" his accomplice asked, curious despite herself. Lelouch smiled blandly.

"Four." He responded, causing a raised eyebrow to appear on her face. "One to beat up the chef for not cooking fast enough, another to rape his wife, the third to kill his dog and the last one to bring the lunch."

"That was terrible." The immortal answered after a few beats, causing him to scowl at her.

There was silence for a little while.

"Why don't you just transport supplies to our truck from afar?" She asked him after a little while.

Lelouch shook his head patronizingly and smiled at her in the same kind of way that Schneizel often did. That infuriating mixture of kindness and condescension that makes you unable to decide as to whether the man is mocking you or trying to be genuinely helpful.

"You still have a lot to learn, witch."

* * *

It was with pomp and aplomb that the temporary Governor-General of Area 11 entered victoriously into the conquered city of Tokyo. It was a glorious parade which had showed to the native population the new reality of their situation in no uncertain terms.

Jeremiah Gottward had once upon a time felt the same smug pride and victory in defeating this country, but this time it tasted more like ash. The knight, or at least that was what he thought of himself, was angry and disillusioned with Britannia right now. Though he knew that the time had reversed and Lelouch was not Emperor right now, he had still felt the most profound sense of betrayal at The Holy Britannian Empire, for going against his master's will.

But, alas, there was nothing that Jeremiah Gottward could do against this reality, so for the moment he put it out of his mind.

He watched, with quite some cynism, as the Lord General Almond Duvant entered into the city in a white majestic roofless car. He was accompanied by an entire motorcade of other cars, each containing soldiers and agents of the OSI.

On both sides of the wide road, which had hastily been cleared of the rubble in preparation for this event, stood Britannian soldiers. All in all, it was an event eerily reminiscent of his master's Zero Requiem.

The general was one of those classic ambitious types, one who would bend over backwards and do whatever he was ordered in order to please his masters and then have a chance at joining them in their glory. He would go further still and do things that he hadn't actually been ordered to do, attempting to show initiative in order to anticipate and fulfil his masters' intentions, before they had even been spoken aloud.

The Empire valued men such as Duvant and Jeremiah himself was not all that dissimilar to them, or at least he had been until he had once again been granted a higher purpose by service to his Lord.

The Orange Knight had been granted a rank of Colonel in the Britannian army, something he had not expected even slightly, given his perceived youth and inexperience, at least now that the time had been reversed. The only possible conclusion was that the current Emperor, Charles zi Britannia had personally, or through a middleman, arranged for his promotion.

Jeremiah believed that if Charles was attempting to sway him to his side, he was wasting his effort, but if he was attempting to ease Lelouch's efforts in the area, he would appreciate it for what it was.

After the ceremony, the purge had begun. Lord General Duvant had ordered all of the Japanese inhabitants to be forcefully ejected out of the centre of Tokyo, in preparation of the construction of Tokyo settlement, which would be the concentrated piece of Britannia, here in Area 11

Jeremiah could only think that his master would probably be furious, however the soldiers under Duvant's command would no doubt gleefully take to the task, doing what was ordered and more, out of righteous fury because of the fate of two members of the Imperial family.

And that was where he came in.

Sayoko had not taken his previous actions as a purist against him and Lady Kallen seemed to be willing to work with him, but the knight desired to do more.

Since the Japanese had clearly not been guilty of their supposed crime, Jeremiah had clearly concluded that he should play the part of a knight and help them out.

The Black Knights may have turned into a failure for their betrayal, but on his name as Jeremiah Gottward, he pledged to become a true knight of justice, just as his Lord intended.

That is why when Lord Jeremiah saw a group of soldiers harassing Elevens, no, Japanese, he immediately intervened.

"Move it, you pathetic Elevens!" A sneering man in a spotless gray uniform shouted at a group of scared looking civilians.

The civilians looked tired and incredibly nervous and the group not only included women, but young children as well. One of the men at the front looked at the soldiers in anger and Orange knew that he was probably about to erupt.

So, he ordered his driver to stop and the Private driving it immediately obeyed and stopped their slow moving car.

"Why are you harassing us?!" The man shouted in accented Britannian. The officer, probably a Lieutenant or some similar rank, stopped walking and the other soldiers raised their rifles in response and aimed them at the man who had spoken. "We're going like you've told us to!"

The officer sneered and glared at the men and the rest of the group.

"You dare?!" he hissed at the assembled civilians. The parents grabbed their children and tried to shield them while they looked at the man in fear. One of the soldiers grabbed by the man by one of his hands, which he had kept in full view on top of his head like some sort of prisoner, and pulled him forward.

One of the women, perhaps his wife or girlfriend shrieked in response and one of the other soldiers aimed at her as well.

"I think we need to make an example out of you." The man in charge said maliciously, but just as he was about to issue an order, he was interrupted.

"What is the meaning of this?" Jeremiah Gottward's cold voice cut through the commotion like a whip.

Many of the soldiers turned around and he could see their commander pale slightly, recognizing the commanding tone.

He took a moment to regain his composure, but then he answered.

"As you can see, _my lord_ , I am attempting to follow the order from General Duvant to empty Tokyo central." The answer was just polite enough to not be counted as insubordination, but Jeremiah narrowed his eyes regardless.

"Does that include abuse of the ones you are supposed to be escorting?" The Orange Knight asked dangerously, glaring displeasedly at the commander.

Jeremiah seemed significantly taller than the soldiers at that moment, part of it may have been his actual height, but a great deal was also his commanding posture and the dangerous aura he seemed to be emitting.

The commander looked down towards the ground as he said that. He could probably see by his uniform that Jeremiah was a higher ranking officer.

"LOOK AT ME, MAGGOT!" The Orange knight shouted, causing both the civilians and the soldiers to flinch rather wildly.

The startled commander immediately raised his head and looked somewhat fearfully at his superior officer, young as he may have appeared.

Jeremiah knew that at the same time in the previous time-line he would never have dared to do something like that, even if he had somehow managed to attain an equal rank so quickly. But he had been the Orange Knight to His Imperial Majesty, The One True Emperor and the Supreme Commander of all Britannian armed forces and he would not shy away at using the power his rank afforded to get what his master wanted.

"There will be no further harassment of civilians, unless you want to make an enemy of Colonel Jeremiah Gottward!" He told them commandingly, using a vicious glare for good measure, pleased by the effect that it had. "I will not repudiate killing an enemy in armed combat, but I will not stand for dishonourable treatment of civilians!"

He may have partly stolen one of His Imperial Majesty's lines, but he was pretty sure that his Lord would approve.

"DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?" He shouted once he had seen that there would otherwise be no response to his words. Again, everyone in the vicinity flinched away from his wrath.

A murmuring of 'Yes, my lord." answered his query and he gave a stern nod of approval.

"Carry on, then." He told the soldiers with narrowed eyes.

After a moment of watching them leave, the soldiers and the civilians left in complete silence, the former not daring to draw more attention from the scary Colonel and the latter silently grateful for the change in treatment.

Jeremiah then re-entered the car and motioned to the driver to carry on.

The car drove through the mostly cleared road while the other soldiers kept giving him uncertain glances.

"What is it?" he asked impatiently, once he had gotten tired of the constant attention.

"W-Well, my lord ..." one of the soldiers in the back ducked his head once Jeremiah gave him his full attention. The soldier was actually chronologically older than him, but as Lelouch had said, age, as well as most other things, were all irrelevant in the face of one's ability to get results. "Aren't you angry? I mean because of the Prince and Princess?"

He refused to meet his eyes, but Jeremiah conceded that it was a logical question, so he ignored that little detail.

"I have served under Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Marianne and both her children, so I think I have more right to be angry than anyone else." Jeremiah told them in a proud and regal tone. But this elicited more confusion, but before anyone else could open his mouth, Lord Jeremiah continued.

"However, Master Lelouch and Lady Nunnaly would never have approved of this invasion, never mind the harassment of the locals." he concluded firmly, being pleased that the lower-ranking soldiers seemed to hang-on on his every word. "I am angry, but I cannot let anything corrupt my loyalty to them, not even my own feelings."

He took a deep breath and looked straight ahead.

"Loyalty trumps all. I am doing what my Lord would have told me to do, not what my feelings are telling me."

He remained oblivious to the resulting admiring glances of his underlings as the group drove towards their other objective.

His master had been gracious enough to accept him despite all of his past faults, so this time he would make sure to become a person that His Imperial Majesty would not be embarrassed by.

A true knight.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _I hope you liked Charles' speech. I wanted to make a transition between 'all men are not equal' part and the 'it's a sin to kill a royal' part, but I lacked the motivation and the idea._

 _This chapter does not contain everything that I wanted it to contain, since I also intended to include Lelouch's reaction to the occupation, Kallen's reaction (probably rather short), Suzaku leaving and Clovis' arrival, but unfortunately I find myself right now with a lack of will to write more. So, I'll include those in the next chapter. We seem to be progressing more slowly than I anticipated._

 _Why isn't LL just transporting supplies using his power? It's simple, he wouldn't have been able to run over soldiers that way. It's simple logic!_

 _Why hasn't LL or anyone else done "whatever" ? Assuming the "whatever" in question is something obvious, then I probably have a good reason for it. Or at least a reason._

 _I have posted two more story ideas on my profile. Including one where Charles has dementia, though I haven't really written much details on that one. The other one is a Code Geass crossover with the Elder Scrolls series and is rather massive._

 _LL and CC are robbing alone (at least here in the chapter), altrough at first I intended for the entire group to go on a "trip" together._

 _Do you know the feeling when you're kinda tired and everything around you feels like it sucks? I have that feeling right now, so I've rather just posted this now than forced myself to continue writing. My mood might have infected it otherwise._

 _Even so, I hope you like this chapter and please review (unless of course you share the same mood at the time of reading xD )._

 _Imperatia_


	10. The Joys of Tyranny

_Greetings,_

 _You should probably have a grenade launcher within arms reach when you go showering. You know, just in case._

 _There may be references to things hidden in the story. Yes, in addition to the super obvious ones, like the DBZ one in chapter 8._

 _Also, 12,5K+ views. Longest chapter so far, this is.  
_

* * *

Kallen felt angry and powerless. This was not a new feeling for her, rather it was something that unfortunately she had felt rather often, for minor and major reasons alike.

Sometimes, during one of Milly's mad schemes as the Madam President of the Student Council, she had felt this way while being forced into some ridiculous costume, but though she had felt this at the time, it now seemed silly and even humorous.

However what was happening now was nothing so trivial. She watched in anger as the Britannian military made their little procession across one of the main Tokyo streets, an event which also seemed like a sinister echo of Zero Requiem, making her feel even angrier and more helpless.

She clenched her fists in anger as the smug face of Lord General Duvant came into view. The man was a rather grizzled looking middle-aged man with short, militaristic brown, greying hair and a look of undeserved pride on his scarred face. His impeccable and pristine green-blue uniform, which was wildly in contrast with the ruined grey around him made her hate him even more.

Right now she could perfectly understand Lelouch's anger with Britannia. Being first thrown away like trash into a foreign country, then being declared dead and his deceased status being used as an excuse to destroy his new home, attempting to kill him in the process.

If anything, she was surprised that he seemed such a well-adjusted member of society.  
Well, relatively speaking.

Right now, they, the Tokyo civilians stood on both sides of the road, looking uncertainly at the procession, unaware of just what was yet in store for them.

She looked to her parents and her brother, who stood beside her.

She still wasn't sure of her father, unsure of whether she should despise him or pity him, for after the capture of Tokyo he had rarely visited and had channelled most of his energy into the Imperial Court. For what purpose, she still did not know.

Her mother was still unbroken as despite the distress at seeing her way of life being destroyed, she hadn't lost Naoto yet and hadn't yet attempted to drown her sorrows in Refrain. She resolved to keep it that way and prevent either of those things from happening.

And her brother.

One of the main reasons why she saw this opportunity as a blessing, rather than a curse. Returning to year 2009 would have seemed as a dream come true, if not for the constant nagging in the back in her mind, telling her that it would not last.

But, this time it would be different.

Her eyes widened a bit as she noticed Jeremiah Gottward on the other side of the road, just as the last vehicle passed.

As far as she could see, he seemed to be in a particularly foul mood, if him attempting to flay the surrounding soldiers alive with his eyes was any indication.

He didn't seem to notice her, but seeing him there reassured her just a bit. Though he was one of the people she had once upon a time hated the most, she also knew who he now represented.

Naoto after all was not her only reason.

"Let's go, Kallen." her brother told her softly, not wanting to raise his voice in the presence of Britannian troops, fearing attracting their attention.

He took her small hand and held it, slowly leading her away from the already finished spectacle which she had seemed spell-bound by.

She looked up at her older brother and once again gulped at seeing all of his attention on her.

Seeing her uncertainty, he offered a reassuring smile to her, though she could still see his own doubts behind it.

"We'll get through it, I promise." he told her and though she though that he sounded doubtful, she also knew that he would be right in the end.

She narrowed her eyes and turned around, glaring at the soldiers.

They would get to live. _For now_.

"Alright, nii-chan." she told her brother and the two were followed by their parents as the small family left the area.

She only hoped that Lelouch and Naoto's visions for the future would be compatible. But, oh well, if they weren't, she could still kick their butts into compliance.

* * *

Lelouch glared at everything in sight as their stolen car (they couldn't exactly justify civilians coming into town in a military truck, now could they?) approached the half-ruined Tokyo central from the Shinjiku side of town. The damn old man had been entirely useless, which would require _punishment_ from his part. If Charles though that he was now free of his command, he had another thing coming.

He narrowed his eyes at the surrounding soldiers, who were arrogant enough to believe that they had the right to stop their car and demand something of them.

Unfortunately, this time, they were not in the middle of nowhere, so they had to comply.

Suzaku and Lelouch sat in the back, with Nunnaly in the middle, while the two women sat in the front with C.C. in the drivers seat.

The car stopped in front of a checkpoint and a soldier, without a helmet, approached from the witch's side.

He peered inside imperiously (Lelouch rolled his eyes at that), looking at each of them in turn and stopped his stare on the Japanese maid.

Then he addressed C.C.

"Only Britannians are allowed in the centre." He told her in what to him must have sounded regal and commanding. To Lelouch it sounded more similar to the ravings of a man, who desperately wanted to get a bullet in the face. "Papers please."

Lelouch could see that at that moment, Suzaku and Sayoko seemed to both panic just a little bit, if only internally. Nunnaly had kept her calm, though she still looked a bit uncertain.

But C.C. was well prepared and produced a few documents from the somewhat tattered formal suit she was wearing and gave them to the soldier.

The eyes on his stupid idiotic face widened somewhat upon seeing something on one of those documents.

He returned the documents and he seemed to be much more humble now, which peaked Lelouch's curiosity.

But he still couldn't let them part without infecting the air with more of his stupidity.

"That's an Eleven, Your Grace." he told her, regaining some of his bravado, as if he had told them something terribly surprising. C.C. of course reacted in an appropriate manner.

"Thank you for that information." She told him snidely, while looking at him as if he was a particularly disgusting rodent that she had the displeasure of seeing. "You should join the OSI. I'm sure they'd love your epic observation skills."

The pathetic guard blushed an unflattering colour at her sarcastic remarks and decided to just cut his losses.

"Let them through!" he yelled and the others and the walking trash-cans finally stepped aside. C.C. gave the man a final look and drove forward through the city.

"How did we get through that, C.C?" Nunnaly asked the immortal gently. "What did you show them?"

C.C. looked at her through the front mirror.

"I had Charles manufacture me some nobility ID." she told, not unkindly, to the youngest of the group. "Without it, we'd never have been able to get in Tokyo central in a car. They are monitoring traffic. Only the military and VIPs are allowed through without any hassle."

She sighed.

"With the right ID, they wouldn't look at us too closely and Sayoko and Suzaku could accompany us." C.C. continued, keeping her eyes on the road.

"What that guy really needed was a knife in the throat, not papers." Lelouch spoke irritably. Suzaku looked at him in exasperation and rolled his eyes at him.

Sayoko perked up a bit though, at her master's implied order.

"Shall I go and take care of him then, My Lord?" she offered half-eagerly.

"Tempting, tempting." Lelouch spoke, but upon seeing Suzaku and Nunnaly's glares, he stopped and calmed down a bit. "But no. We don't have time for such things right now."

He rolled his eyes at his two pint-sized companions and their reactions. It's not like he said anything really terrible. He kind of wished Kallen were there, as she'd probably agree with him.

There were a few minutes of silence as the group drove through the half-ruined city and the 99th Emperor used this opportunity to look around a little bit.

Construction had began a few days previous to this, or maybe a better way of saying it would be preparation for construction as many obstacles still had to be cleared until the layered base structure could be started.

The city, or at least this particular part of it was rather empty, meaning that its original inhabitants had probably been expelled outside of it.

Lelouch had never really understood the sheer stupidity of the Area 11 occupation government. Whether one was talking about the current, temporary force or Clovis' numerous stooges for when his brother would formally be named as the permanent head of state.

The war had, truthfully, been rather short and although there had been several massacres (of course he couldn't confirm that at this point, but he was reasonably sure that they had repeated themselves at least partially), realistically many more casualties would follow afterwards.

War as an event brought chaos and it destroyed a lot of infrastructure. Unfortunately, the Area 11 government had never really bothered to repair all of the damage.

The government would focus mostly on Tokyo settlement and a few other important settlements as well as military bases, but it would generally ignore the rest, giving the remainder of the population so-called self-rule.

On paper it must have seemed a rather brilliant idea no doubt, but NAC, the group that would be or had already been tasked with governance of the numbered citizens was truthfully more or less an alliance of merchants.

As such and including their perceived status as traitors, the NAC's power was really limited to the immediate area surrounding Kyoto or if one were to be extremely generous with regards to them, to the biggest Japanese island, Honshu.

So, the Japanese casualties had not really even truly began. In the future, many more would die from such trivial causes as hunger, disease or freezing to death, as the collapse of the economic system and the poor establishment of the Britannian rule would mean that many former Japanese would lose the means of subsistence.

Basic infrastructure such as roads, electrical installation, even water access etc. was at least partially destroyed now and since the Imperial Government would not bother to repair all of them and NAC would many times lack the authority and the means to do so. This would mean that many, especially outlying small villages, would have a very hard time even just surviving.

All that from a 30-day war.

Meanwhile, Britannian forces would pretty much outright brag about how they had managed to "civilize" Japan, never-mind the fact that it had been a First world country already.

Though that same negligence would, at least to him, be a great opportunity for his own plans to develop.

But, at that point he was forced to stop thinking about the greater picture, as the group had pretty much arrived at their destination, which was the Ashford apartment in Tokyo.

Somewhat ironically, the apartment was located in a Britannian quarter of central Tokyo, which while rather prestigious looking, was both physically and mentally removed from the rest of town. Its white and pompous-looking buildings stood in stark contrast with it's grey surroundings.

C.C. drove the car towards the house and parked it haphazardly in front of it at the pavement. That was probably not the right thing to do in this situation, but Lelouch approved of the blatant rule-breaking, as there were hardly any policemen around that could punish them.

One of the house's inhabitants had apparently seen them, as as soon as they exited the car and C.C. rang at the entrance, the door had already opened.

"Yes?" An ageing, but tall Britannian male with greying hair asked upon opening it. He was, of course Milly's grandfather, Ruben Ashford. It seems that despite being in somewhat better financial position, the man had still deemed Pendragon to be unsafe at this time.

His eyes landed on the two women in the front and he appeared to be slightly confused upon seeing them.

"How can I help you?" He asked in a somewhat guarded voice. But that would soon change as Nunnaly chose that moment to break the ice.

"Hello, Mr. Ashford." His sister greeted in her usual sweet voice and the elderly man's eyes widened upon seeing the little girl on her rather simplistic wheelchair.

"Nunnaly, is that you?" He asked with quite some disbelief, passing between the two women and approaching the three children. Upon approaching the girl, he noticed the two boys. He became a bit confused after seeing Suzaku, not knowing who he was, but he gulped slightly upon seeing the other boy's cold eyes, recognizing him instantly.

"Ruben." The Eleventh Prince spoke in a calm, authoritative voice.

"Lelouch." The old man spoke in a whisper, full of wonder. "You're both alive?"

The former and future Emperor sneered slightly at this.

"No thanks to Britannia." He spoke coldly, making the future headmaster stare at him a little bit. "But, Ye-"

"Y-You guys are okay!" Another childish voice interrupted from the doorway and everyone looked towards its origin, which was a blonde girl, a bit bigger than the dark-haired demon.

"Hello, Milly!" Nunnaly greeted and soon after the older girl ran down the dirtied steps towards the girl.

Lelouch and Suzaku smiled at each-other slightly as Milly grabbed the younger girl in a hug and started to bawl her eyes out.

The Emperor smirked as the girl seemed to be even more god-damn emotional than his friend and the Knight must have recognized the thought on his face, as he threw him a narrowed-eyed glare.

Not that glares worked very much on him.

Though their roles were reversed soon after, as the girl then proceeded to hug Lelouch as well, while the Prince attempted to get her off of him.

"Lulu!" The god-damned mini woman cried as she pretty attached herself to him, disabling any movement.

He threw a sharp glare at Suzaku.

But he couldn't stay too annoyed at her as he was actually rather glad to see her. The last time he had seen her, she looked rather seething mad, which was understandable considering his status as the Demon Emperor.

"Now, now, Milly, let Lelouch breathe!" The future headmaster, bless his heart, chastised his granddaughter and thankfully, the girl soon obeyed.

"Good to see you again, Millicent." The Emperor told her teasingly and was amused when her face reddened slightly.

"D-Don't call me that!" She stuttered with quite some annoyance, rather disliking her full name. He simply smirked at her a bit, causing her to glare at him. The image was ruined by her slightly puffy eyes.

He did miss this little version of Milly, which was still somewhat easily flustered. Now, if only she'd stay that way and not turn into the evil she-devil that had tyrannically ruled Ashford in the future.

But he wouldn't hold out much hope for that.

* * *

Charles zi Britannia walked majestically from the side of the throne room and stepped towards the throne in the middle of the platform.

"Hail, Your Majesty!" shouted one of the ever present guards of that particular chamber.

The 98th Emperor did not respond with anything other than an acknowledging nod in response to his subordinate's hail and proceeded to sit regally in his grand chair.

There were a few people, most of them nobles, already present in front of the steps of the throne platform. He could spot for example, Lord Holliston somewhere in the back, while Lord Calares was a bit closer to the throne. He did not understand how Calares found the time to brown-nose, considering he was also an Imperial General of the Britannian Imperial Army. The campaign in Japan had just been completed, that was true, however the Emperor still believed that a high-ranking member of the military had enough to do, even in peacetime.

Speaking of Japan, his efforts at stopping the war had ended in failure.

He had been unable to directly communicate either his opposition or his displeasure at its commencement in a direct way, since that would ultimately conflict with his chosen image of both strength and indifference, but he had believed himself to be rather successful in subtly influencing the important peers against it.

Unfortunately, his brother's henchmen had come from an entirely different direction.

Namely, the Office of Secret Intelligence.

The information about Lelouch and Nunnaly's death had come from that direction, from a man called Agent Reginald Kitchener, supported by a few other members of the OSI.

Beatrice Holt, Head of the OSI, had been rather seething furious at her organisation being used in such a manner and had expressed her displeasure in one of the untelevised sessions of the Imperial Court.

Which worked out rather nicely, as this meant that Charles could justify their very public execution in front of the very same audience to his unfortunate brother, V.V. To V.V., he explained this as a way of appeasing Holt and to the nobility this was, a not very subtle, indication of what would happen to them, if anything similar were to repeat itself ever again. In addition to the obvious threat at the funeral, this should hopefully keep them in line, in the future.

"Now presenting, His Highness, the 3rd Prince, Clovis la Britannia." Declared one of the guards in front of the grand doors on the other side of the throne room.

Ah, great. Another one of those spoiled brats would arrive to ruin his day further. Clovis had been rather renowned for being a whiny brat and a sore loser to boot, although growing up and his siblings supposed death had fixed some of the more annoying tendencies.

Or, at least, Clovis took care not to express them in front of his father any-more. After the banishment, his numerous other children had become rather vary of him and were distrustful of him.

If he had cared about their image of him, he would be tempted to shed a tear, but as he didn't give a damn, he just continued doing what he was doing.

Finally, the blonde prince entered into the throne room as the grand doors opened. He was dressed in some rather subdued blue noble robes, with those white gloves the aristocracy seemed to favour so much.

After a few moments of walking, the dandy prince stood in front of his father.

"Your Majesty." he spoke warily and bowed at his waist.

Charles gave him his full attention. He knew precisely for what reason the boy had come in front of him.

"Why have you come here in front of me, Clovis?" The Emperor asked imperiously from atop of his throne, glaring down at his son.

Clovis gulped slightly upon hearing his voice and his impudent subjects started whispering behind him, like irritable flies circling around a dying animal

"I would like to ask a boon of you, Your Majesty." Clovis asked, his voice shaking slightly, though Charles was honestly somewhat impressed by his daring.

The 3rd Prince was not particularly cowardly for a member of the Imperial Family, but he was not an insane bastion of bravery and bravado either.

"Oh?" Charles zi Britannia asked regally, drawing out the word slightly.

"Yes, Your Majesty." His son confirmed, keeping himself together. "I would like to be named as Viceroy of the newly formed Area 11."

Though he was not going to be a particularly outstanding Governor-General, Clovis was actually overall, objectively, the best choice.

General Duvant was a rather typical Imperial General and was one of those people, who always approached a problem with the same attitude.

Like they said, if the only tool you possessed was a hammer, everything looked rather like a nail to you.

Duvant had approached governance with all the repression that the Imperial Army could muster and had attacked every settlement, which failed to comply, like a military target. Thus, he pacified dissent with copious amounts of force, which generally did not work out too well in the long run.

The other choices for Governor-General were other military generals, other members of the Imperial Family, like Cornelia, which were either better used elsewhere or would be just as bad as an Imperial general (which Cornelia would probably be as well). The only other option would be influential members of the nobility, who would probably make even worse governors, thanks to their profit-oriented uncaring attitude.

So, despite the fact that Clovis would be rather hated by the Elevens anyway and Lelouch would not be too pleased by his appointment either, he was still the best choice for either of them. He would be an acceptable governor for at least the Britannian part of Area 11 and would minimize military adventures on the islands, which would probably make Lelouch feel less homicidal than Duvant (who was probably by now a dead man walking).

But, he was not a man who would make such things easy for his son, so he didn't grant the position to him straight away.

The annoying chatter at Clovis' back had meanwhile increased while Charles had been considering the request.

"Oh?" The 98th Emperor drawled mercilessly, glaring at the 3rd Prince, who only semi-successfully disguised his gulp. "And for what reason would you like to head there?"

His son took a deep breath at that, probably not thinking that he would get this far.

"I ... I want to make myself useful to the Empire and solidify my position in the Imperial Court." His son told only somewhat shakily. "Also ..."

He trailed off uncertainly. His father glared at him, motioning for him to go on.

"I would like to look for my siblings remains and if possible, sent them back to Pendragon." Clovis continued, ducking his head slightly, as if expecting a reprimand.

There was silence for a few moments.

"Very well." Emperor Charles boomed after a few moments and Clovis lifted his head, looking at him with a bit of disbelief.

Charles raised his eyebrow at his gob-smacked expression in an imperious manner, but did not comment on it.

"Either of those reasons was acceptable." The Emperor continued in his regal voice, while whispering once again intensified in the background. "You are hereby named Governor-General of Area 11. You will keep this position as long as you hold to the principles of Imperial rule."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Clovis answered as he bowed in front of the throne. He looked at his father uncertainly, but Charles motioned to him that he could leave.

Charles looked thoughtfully at his son's back. He considered if he should think about improving his relationship with the rest of the Imperial Family. Last time he had truthfully not cared overly much after Marianne's assassination, throwing himself fully into Ragnarok research.

It would certainly make Schneizel's idiotic Damocles-based plans more difficult. Some may have believed that his second son was one of his favourites, but truthfully, Charles had made things for him generally quite difficult.

The 98th Emperor had not actually granted to his son the title of Prime Minister. The sneaky child had actually achieved that bit quite on his own, though his birth status may have contributed to that.

Schneizel had become a member of the Britannian Conservative Party and would in the not-so distant future quickly rise in rank, becoming it's leader and the second man in the Empire after successful elections.

In any case, a good relationship with his other children might ruin some of his plans. Besides, Euphemia may make a much better family head for the Imperial Family. Whichever option he chose, he would attempt to subtly increase her future influence in the Court.

* * *

Jeremiah Gottward, a Colonel of the Britannian Army was on the phone and looked rather grim. The person on the other side was someone who was familiar to him, one of his most trusted colleagues, and that person was in the middle of relaying an order from His Imperial Majesty.

Therefore, he made sure to listen attentively.

To be honest, Orange was not particularly surprised to receive this order and had been preparing for this call for a while now. In his anticipation, he had made sure to make his observations on how best to fulfil it.

And now was the time to strike.

"Understood." He verbally confirmed his acceptance to the female on the order side. Though he was alone in the office and had checked for bugs several times, it was still better safe than sorry.

After another instruction from Sayoko, he said his goodbyes and hung up.

As soon as that was completed, he immediately checked his assassin blade, making it spring out from under his wrist.

Feeling satisfied by his inspection, he nodded to himself. As had become his everyday ritual after leaving the Directorate, he went to his fridge and took out a single bottle of beer, Carlsberg.

He poured the whole of the drink into a rather tall glass. Then he sat down behind his office table and slowly drank the beer, all the while considering how best to approach his mission.

After finishing with his small ritual of normalcy, he stood up decisively and headed through the door, closing it behind him. He would not fail his mission.

As he walked slowly through the side streets of ruined Tokyo, he observed his surroundings, noting all that had been ruined during the invasion. True, the construction of Tokyo settlement would mean that Britannians would no longer need be reminded that the city would be built atop ruins and numerous casualties, but the reality would still stay the same.

They had sinned and they would have to repent before his Master would deign to forgive them.

After a few minutes of walking, Jeremiah came across the unremarkable looking house which had been appropriated by the army. It looked like any other of the many houses in the Britannian part of time. It was gleaming white with an almost flat black roof with many beautiful windows, whose frames were in the colour of a beautiful gold. While not particularly tall for a manor, it was nevertheless a typical Britannian construction.

This house in particular was inhabited by his highest ranking army superior, here in Area 11, Lord General Almond Duvant. If this order had not been given to him, Duvant would have retired after his successful conquest of Japan and would have lived to a ripe-old age somewhere in the countryside of Florida.

The front was of course a no-go. Usually, it wouldn't have been a problem, but his instructions had been clear: the only target was the general and none could connect him in any way with his death as Jeremiah still had a role to play.

Getting into the house shouldn't be too much of a problem, Jeremiah though as he avoided the entrance and instead went into a narrow alley on the left of the entrance. It was getting dark, so not getting spotted was not a problem at that moment.

There were only a few guards inside the building itself.

Despite this, Jeremiah had put a black cloak around himself, covering his head as well to prevent anyone from recognizing him in case anything went wrong.

In the upper left corner of the building (if one were to orient himself according to the position of the entrance), there was a pipe, leading from the roof down to the ground. The pipe was supposed to leak rainwater down from the roof.

He gazed up at the second floor of the building and became somewhat annoyed that the window to the immediate right of the pipe was closed.

He sighed in relief however, upon noticing that the second window was actually opened. One of his observations had been that the servants of the manor often opened the windows for the purpose of ventilation.

He ran up to the pipe and jumped on to it, attempting to clear as much distance as possible. He became a bit alarmed at the ringing sound, which in his mind was a lot louder than it probably was realistically. His heart sped up a bit. He chastised himself for his impatience, but after a few moments, when nothing else happened, he started climbing, which was a somewhat difficult process, but he succeeded nonetheless by grabbing some of the rough edges of the wall.

He was nearly spotted by one of the guards in the first room, but thankfully he had ducked quickly enough.

After the guard had left the room, Jeremiah climbed sideways to the second room, which had an opened window.

He finally climbed into the room and was immediately alarmed as the only door started to opened.

There was a tall cabinet near the window, which afforded a possible hiding space as there was some free space between the cabinet and the wall on the left side of the window, so Jeremiah quickly went there and hid.

Thankfully, the door closed soon afterwards as the guard had only checked it slightly from the entrance and did not bother entering it.

Jeremiah then walked softly towards the door and slowly, silently opened it.

To his right there was the back of the guard, a few meters away from him.

He went the opposite direction and tried finding his way towards the General's suite (wherever that may be), ducking two other guards on the way.

He checked most of the rooms, but after a while he concluded that he might be in the floor above.

After a while he heard some terribly off-key singing. He almost snorted in incredulity as he realised that the sound seemed rather familiar to him, but restrained himself, not wishing to reveal his presence.

After stealthily checking two more rooms and not finding anything in them, he finally found what he had been looking for in the third.

He smirked as the saw his target behind the shower curtain and he closed the door behind himself.

He walked briskly towards the shower and in a quick and vicious motion, he pulled the curtain, earning a startled shriek from his target.

He snickered slightly as the good general grabbed his chest from the shock as if he had heart problems. Jeremiah was kind enough to not look lower than that.

"Greeting, _my lord_." The Orange knight greeted mockingly.

"Gottward, what THE HELL are you doing?!" Duvant shouted in response, but thankfully, as he had suspected, the upper floor was empty, apart from his target, so nobody came running. Britannian lords did like their privacy after all.

"Well, _my lord_ , you are to be assassinated under the orders of my master." Jeremiah told the man as he attempted to cover himself using the curtain.

However, his words stopped the general in his tracks.

"W-What?" The brown-haired naked person muttered weakly. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of white knight?!"

"Never presume the colour of my armour!" Jeremiah shouted in response and activated his knife, slashing his target across his chest.

He left soon afterwards, after watching Duvant start to bleed up in the shower.

He dropped a piece of cloth on the floor of the bathroom before he did though. The cloth contained the image of a black handprint. After all, it wouldn't do to have them believe that one of the Japanese had done this.

* * *

After living at the Ashford apartment for a few days, Lelouch decided that he finally had enough information on how to fix the damage in Nunnaly's legs. He had consulted a few books and had compared the inner structure of Nunnaly's legs to C.C.'s and Suzaku's, using his power and had finally gathered the courage to do it.

Unfortunately, Nunnaly had been rather obtuse about it for a few days, arguing that there were plenty of other handicapped people and that he should try a more normal method, using the possible application of his power, so that it could benefit more than just her.

Lelouch had set her straight and told her in no uncertain terms of just how stupid he believed she was being, making her blush quite a bit at the end.

The procedure, if you could call it that, was successful, but Nunnaly would still need quite a bit of physical therapy before she could really walk again without any support. But, by the time they would see Tohdoh again, she should be more than well enough to bully the Colonel (or whatever his rank was) into training her in martial arts.

He would comply … _or else._

"How did you do it?" Milly asked once again, pestering him about Nunnaly's mysterious recovery. But as always, he would offer the same answer.

"I am Lelouch." He told her helpfully, in a rather smug voice, as if that was answer enough. As if not being able to cure a crippled person of all her ills would be completely ridiculous to him.

"Ughh!" she groaned irritably and threw her hands in the air in exasperation, stomping away loudly, while he looked on in amusement.

Let them make their own conclusions. If they wanted to believe her to be a miracle child, let them. If they wanted to believe that he had hired a former Japanese surgeon or something, then let them believe that.

He would always offer the same answer. He now knew why C.C. had always been so bloody infuriating. It was amazing.

"So, do you really have to leave now, Suzaku?" Nunnaly asked with a little bit of sadness in her voice. Lelouch glared at his friend in response for causing that.

Suzaku shrugged helplessly and nodded.

"I want to see my mother again." He confessed after a moment. "I know she'll probably hate me now, but I want to at least meet with everyone again."

Nunnaly frowned in response.

"There is also the matter of Britannian occupation." Lelouch said after a moment of silence. "Right now, the army is still high-strung and they might respond badly to any Japanese. So, maybe its safer for him to leave for a while."

"What about Sayoko?" Nunnaly asked.

"There is no need to worry about me." Sayoko spoke kindly.

Lelouch heard her coming and Nunnaly was used enough to her antics, but Suzaku yelped loudly once she suddenly showed up behind them.

"I'll be discreet whenever I leave the house." she reassured the young princess while Suzaku breathed slowly and attempted to calm his racing heart. He glared half-heartedly at the maid.

"When do you join the military?" Lelouch asked him calmly, though he was a bit tempted to throw an accompanying smirk for reacting so loudly to Sayoko.

"At sixteen." Suzaku answered his friend. The Emperor nodded and grasped his chin thoughtfully.

"Once you conclude your business at Kyoto, you may return here." Lelouch told him and though the second part may have sounded like a suggestion, the tone was that of command.

Lelouch didn't really think that Suzaku would be too happy there. Only a few people may have known what he had done, but one of them was probably his mother. His friend didn't really want him to be subjected to unfriendly stares and nasty treatment. He and Nunnaly got enough of that in the Imperial Court for him to know that it wasn't an acceptable option.

And given that Suzaku looked a bit pale at the thought of returning, he didn't think that the reception would be very good. Though Kaguya and Kirihara might help to make it a bit less horrible.

If they knew what was good for them, that is.

* * *

A boy with long blonde hair hummed in thought as he looked at a photo of a rather beautiful Britannian noblewoman.

"This woman is proving to be a bit of a pest." He said in his rather childish voice. His entourage, consisting of two rather tall and heavily cloaked individuals ignored his mutterings as guards usually did.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _Poor V.V._

 _Charles' parts are always the best, IMHO, for some reason._

 _I don't know why, but at that last scene I felt rather bad for Duvant. I hope I didn't ruin Jeremiah's image now, but do know that he's following Lelouch's philosophy. The whole: Be a knight for justice, but also: Punish the strong for trampling on the weak. Ergo, Black Knight. Duvant didn't seem too evil perhaps, but generally speaking, evil is done most often for the most banal of reasons. Like practicality, habit, obedience etc. That's the true horror of it, perhaps, and Duvant killed and opressed for such reasons. I hope I gave a good enough idea of what he was guilty of. Clovis' crimes would fall more under negligence (mostly), though that might be a topic for another day._

 _I am not entirely satisfied with Kallen's bit, though in my defence I would probably have much less problems writing her interactions than her thought processes. I'll have to go and read some fiction now, so I won't waste too much time on char's thinking anymore, so this doesn't end up like Twillight!_

 _I have a hard time believing that Britannia would accept recruits under 16 (though the Directorate is not so picky and there have been exceptions, but I do believe 16+ would be standard). Anime does like its child soldiers though._

 _I can't believe that for this chapter I've actually mostly followed my plan and have written all that I had intended. (Well, I_ _ **did**_ _skip one scene, but I've added two unplanned ones). Also, Nunnaly's legs are fixed now. Now she can be a badass warrior as well as a badass stateswoman. I wanted to do the whole leg repair scene, but I lacked motivation for it. Also, I didn't precisely know how to do it well._

 _In response to one reviewer who said that Lelouch was getting OP. That **is**_ _kind of_ _the point of this story , though I do realise that his use of powers in last chapter was rather uninspired. Generally, I shall avoid him using them when he doesn't need to, though. Otherwise, why have minions, if you're going to do everything on your own?  
_

 _Imperatia_


	11. VV's Epic Journey of Self-Discovery

_Greetings,_

 _My apologies for the late update. A combination of other obligations, illness and a lack of motivation prevented me from posting earlier. I hope that you like this chapter. It's also the longest so far._

* * *

In a small, but luxurious apartment close to the centre of Tokyo, a phone rang. The phone was situated on top of a finely decorated end table made out of dark wood, situated in the corner of the small dining room, next to a beautiful vase which contained a single red rose.

And as soon as the phone rang, rapid steps could be heard from the distance.

In no time at all, the door opened and a young maid of Japanese descent entered into the dining room.

"Yes?" Sayoko asked demurely into the receiver. On the other side was her faithful friend and colleague, Jeremiah Gottward and his call brought two interesting pieces of news.

After a few moments of listening, the maid nodded slightly in response, although the person on the line obviously couldn't hear that.

"Alright." she verbally confirmed after a moment, after the knight had concluded his report. "I'll inform Lelouch-sama about this. If my Lord gives you any specific orders, I'll make sure to let you know."

She listened for a moment, obviously waiting to hear what the other person had to say.

"Goodbye." She concluded the conversation after a moment and put the phone down. Then she signed a little, looking through the window.

After the long years of continuous war, it had been difficult to become a simple maid once more. Peaceful life was quite enjoyable, but she couldn't put her mind of the constant reminder that it was all fleeting.

It was the calm before the storm so to speak, although with Lelouch on their side the storm would hopefully not be nearly as long or as damaging.

She, like everyone else, had her doubts about working with Emperor Charles and his servants, but she, like Jeremiah, believed that the decision was in her master's hand. So, she remained silent on the matter and would remain silent until Lelouch asked her opinion. A vassal should only give counsel if their master asked, after all.*

After a few moments, she left the dining room and made her way towards the living room, where her young charges were located.

The living room was rather small as well, as was appropriate for a rather small apartment. Although the Ashfords had offered them their place to stay, Lelouch had wanted them to have their own apartment because it would have been harder to hide things from them if they lived in the same rooms.

And inevitably, things would have to be hidden. Even if Lelouch had absolutely no doubt that he could convince Ruben and Milly to his line of thinking if need be, he did not want to put them in the line of fire and he most definitely did not want any interference.

Lelouch knew that Ruben would most likely not do anything malicious, but he knew that adults or older people in general had this most annoying urge to assume that they knew better just because they had lived longer.

In any case, Sayoko entered the room and noticed that Lelouch was still working on something. He was seated at the couch, next to his sister, but while Nunnaly was watching the television, he continued to look into his red little notebook, writing sporadically into it.

"My Lord, Jeremiah has just called." She announced to her Master, bowing to him respectfully. He closed his notebook and gave her his full attention.

"I'm apologize for having to ask you to act as my secretary." Lelouch told her, but she waved his words away. "I intended to have C.C. do that part, but..."

"It's fine, my Lord." she told him patiently. "I understand that Her Majesty has her own concerns."

Nunnaly took her attention away from the TV and looked at them quizzically.

"Where did she go anyway?" She asked them calmly. Obviously, she hadn't been informed yet.

Lelouch frowned at her question.

"As you know, C.C. is a Code Bearer." He told them in response, standing up and walking towards the small glass coffee table between the couch and television. He gazed back at them and was rewarded with confirming nods.

He took the red book and put it on the table.

"She has been searching for someone to take her Code for a while now." He continued. His last words were such a massive understatement that Nunnaly couldn't help but roll her eyes at him. "And previously, she was responsible for giving Geass to several people."

"Similar to myself, she chose people who were close to death at the moment of seeing them." he told them and Nunnaly took a deep breath at the implied admission that Clovis' goons had nearly finished him in Shinjuku. "So I'm guessing that she probably wants to save them."

Sayoko raised her eyebrow a little at that.

"She only told me that she had to find 'a bunch of kids', my Lord." she confessed to him and her Master shrugged in response, averting his gaze from her and looking through the window.

"She told me the same thing, this is only my conclusion." Lelouch admitted to them as he focused at the small part of layered basis of Tokyo Concession that had by now been completed.

Using the very advanced Britannian building techniques, the construction was proceeding rather quickly. Taking into account the billions of pounds invested into this project, it was really no surprise to see this. While the ruined buildings, as well as structures, which looked 'too Eleven' to include, had been demolished or were in the process of being demolished, the 'acceptable ones' would be raised to the level of the Settlement with the help of numerous hydraulic devices.**

"Will she give them Geass?" Nunnaly asked warily with a look of distaste. She may have come to terms with C.C. as a person, she did not really like the power, still believing it to be rather despicable.

Lelouch did not really want to disagree and he looked at her with a slightly softened expression.

"I would imagine that she will avoid it if she can." He told her calmingly, causing her to look up. "She knows my stance on this issue."

There was a small lull in conversation for a little while.

"But enough about C.C." Lelouch commanded regally or as regally as his childlike voice allowed him to and his attention focused back on Sayoko. "What did Jeremiah say?"

Sayoko stiffened slightly at being the centre of attention, but complied after a few beats.

"Firstly, Jeremiah wanted to inform us that he had managed to insure that most of the employees of Aries Villa have remained there for the moment." The loyal maid told them, causing both of the children to stare at her. "Many of the guards have been either promoted or transferred and some of the employees have left, but the majority of the servants still remain, though they are uncertain of their fate."

Lelouch nodded.

"Is Aries Villa still financed by the Imperial Household?" he asked her after a moment, however he could see from the look on her face that she did not really know that.

"Jeremiah did not say, however judging by the fact that he has asked which employees you'd like to keep at Pendragon and which you would like to invite here, I'd guess that perhaps not entirely." Sayoko answered and even if the information was vague, it was still useful.

Lelouch frowned in thought.

"Is there anyone in particular that you would like here, Nunnaly?" He asked after a moment and his sister was a bit startled at being addressed.

"Me?" she asked and he nodded in response.

"I'm sorry, big brother, but I don't really remember any of them really well." She told him after a moment of thought. Those that had stayed in Pendragon and kept their jobs had been killed after Schneizel used the FLEIA. The villa had been used as a sort of a hostel to receive important guests to the Imperial City and from what Lelouch knew some of the Rounds sometimes resided there, especially Anya (for obvious reasons). Even after being kidnapped during the Black Rebellion, she hadn't stayed there for long and afterwards, there was no Pendragon to speak of.

"Very well." Lelouch answered and returned his attention to his maid, who straightened in attention.

"Tell Jeremiah to chose the ones he thinks are most trustworthy." He ordered. "At the very minimum, we will need a cook, a driver, two guards and a secretary. As we cannot support them at the moment, Jeremiah is to inform Mister Smerks that the Imperial Household will pay for them for at least another year or until I say otherwise. This is not a request."

"Yes, my Lord." Sayoko answered, bowing slightly.

"In addition, according to Jeremiah, the OSI has informed him that V.V. has entered Pendragon." The maid continued her report, causing Lelouch's eyes to narrow at that particular piece of information.

Why would the Office of Secret Intelligence tell him that?

For one thing, he knew that Beatrice Holt was not all that fond of him. During the month between Charles' death and his formal ascension, he had used his Geass on her as well as her high ranking employees in order to secure his rule.

In addition, on its own, this information was seemingly not particularly useful.

"Anything else?" He asked, facing Sayoko. She shook her head in response, causing him to frown.

It did not take long for him to get some ideas, however.

He knew that although Charles had been a rather hands-off Emperor, he wasn't entirely incompetent. Meaning that he had probably prevented the nobility from being the cause of war. But, perhaps, V.V. might have used the OSI to do this. If so, lady Holt just might hold a grudge against him.

However, that did not explain everything. As much as Lelouch despised the pathetic little midget, he would not really run to Pendragon as soon as he was informed of his presence. As much as he would have enjoyed to torment the little shit, he had other things to do.

Holt probably knew that too.

Unless ... His eyes narrowed in thought as his two colleagues watched his changing expressions.

He looked towards Nunnaly for a moment and in that instant, the connection came into his mind.

Marrybell.

Empress Consort, Flora mel Britannia and one of her daughters had died in a supposed terrorist attack in Pendragon. It was guessed by many that it had been inspired by the attack on Marianne.

"What an amazing coincidence." Lelouch spoke demonically, his expression unnerving the two females somewhat.

"What is?" Nunnaly asked cluelessly, but after a few more moments of staring at him she seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion, if her wide-eyed gasp was any indication.

Well done, sister.

He smiled darkly.

* * *

The Devil stalked the streets of Pendragon. It was a rather calm evening right now and Lelouch had decided to go on a walk.

The street of Saint Darwin was rather calm right now and indeed on most days as the Imperial Family did not really tolerate any ruckus in its own domain. The air was clean, which obviously wouldn't be the case in the territory of any of the other superpowers as Britannia had this rather extreme obsession with the environment.

It was rather fascinating actually, that while social justice groups and various groups concerned with human and civil rights were rather weak in the Empire, the environmentalist organisations were almost absurdly powerful, being no doubt the most powerful lobby in the Empire, apart from some Armament companies and Pizza Hut.

It was also the reason why Clovis would put such efforts into constructing those massive solar panels all over Tokyo Settlement. It certainly wasn't because he was environmentally conscious.

But regardless of those details, the air in the capitol was calm and there were only a few people on the streets. There were a few rather young individuals, maybe the teenage children of nobles going to a party or something (Lelouch wasn't particularly aware of these matters).

There were also, sporadically, members of His Majesty's Royal Guard, patrolling the streets of the Imperial City of Pendragon.

These guys had nothing on his Imperial Guard. He conveniently forgot the fact that a good deal of his soldiers had been recruited from the Royal Guard. But never-mind that little detail.

After a few moments, he stopped abruptly.

He just stood there and after a while, his lips slowly morphed into an amused smile as he thought of a rather hilarious way of how to deal with the little peasant midget.

However,upon stopping, to his irritation, someone crashed into him from behind.

"Hey, move!" Said someone, who sounded like a rather whiny teenager, and low and behold, it was a whiny teenager, with acne all over his face and a stupid looking expression on his face, in Lelouch's opinion.

Lelouch turned to his side and gifted the little shit with one of his more effective glares.

"Get lost." He instructed and watched with some amusement as the teenager scurried along to wherever he had intended to go.

He continued on the pavement as the skies grew darker. V.V.'s Code, unfortunately for the little shit, broadcasted his presence like a luminous beacon, at least to Lelouch.

As a person with a Code, his connection to the World of C was far stronger than that of a normal person or even that of a Geass contractor, therefore Lelouch could relatively easily track his presence.

It was somewhat similar to internet search. If you knew precisely what to write in the search box in order to find a specific website, you would find it immediately, without even trying really. The only thing Lelouch had to look for were connection to the World of C and all Code Bearers stood out like a sore thumb.

Too bad that he couldn't really see what kind of active connection _he_ himself had. Would have been interesting.

But after a few minutes of passing tall white manors and cutting across the Exalica avenue, he had finally reached Flora mel Britannia's house. Well, it was a castle really, comparable in size to both Aries Villa and some of the larger corporate buildings, here in Pendragon.

Such was the size and splendour of the Pisces Imperial Villa. Of course, Britannians had to put Imperial in absolutely every name and every sentence, otherwise it wouldn't be as good apparently.

He quietly slipped over the beautiful silver fence, which separated the Empress's territory from the pavement and designated the boundaries with the rest of town. He obviously would never have been able to do it so quietly in his previous life, but the practice of sneaking up on his unfortunate subjects in the afterlife had taught him many things.

One after all had to become exceedingly capable to continuously ruin the (after)lives of already paranoid cretins.

This, for some reason, reminded him of the time when his father had finally managed, after several months, to build a small beat-up little shack for himself and Marianne. Unfortunately, Lelouch arrived only a few seconds after its completion and personally wrecked the entire place with a bulldozer.

He could still picture the horrified look on his father's face. Good times.

His parents didn't seem to think so, but it had been a rather humorous event.

V.V. was nearly at the villa, having stopped somewhere else in the city, for some unknown reason.

The hobgoblin practically ignored the guards at the gate and attempted to just climb over it, prompting guards to curse in response. Lelouch snorted as he watched from underneath one of the orchard trees

"Hey, you little brat, you can't come here!" One of the guardsmen shouted as he grabbed V.V. shoulders, probably attempting to push him back over the short steel gate or something.

Unfortunately, upon touching the boy, the guard released a short scream. He shuddered and started foaming at the mouth as the other guard watched in shock.

The first guardsman then fell backwards, presumably fainting.

Lelouch narrowed his eyes in thought as his father's older brother jumped down from the gate, prompting the other guard to finally snap out of his shock, attempting to grab his firearm, however V.V. was faster and by the time the guard had aimed his weapon, the immortal had already grabbed the man's wrist.

The same thing happened once again and the second guard fell on the ground in his catatonic state.

The 99th Emperor frowned at the man-child. V.V. was actually a fair bit more impressive than he had anticipated. It was a given really, since he had been his younger brother's protector for many years and the Head of the Directorate, however he had forgotten in this instance, for a moment, that one should never underestimate his opponents.

He resolved to take the lesson to heart as he retreated deeper into Flora's orchard. He had already masked his presence from V.V., however he still had to make sure that the boy wouldn't see him with his eyes. Not yet at least.

However, all his thoughts left his mind as he finally saw what the great and powerful V.V. looked like at the moment and he could barely restrain his snort.

Really, V.V.? Really?

He had to put his fist to his mouth to prevent himself from laughing.

Now, V.V. looked rather ridiculous on the best of days, what with his choice of appearing as a "mystical" looking, long-haired blonde little girl, but this was new.

The great midget's face was entirely black, as if he had spend the better part of the day with his head stuck in a chimney. He also had an odd-looking red beanie on his head, which looked rather obnoxiously large on his head.

So, that's where his hair went.

He looked either like a chimney sweep or a racist interpretation of a black person.

Lelouch actually snorted at the thought and was a little bit alarmed as the little shit turned his head to the side. He had obviously heard something.

After a moment of suspicious looking, the boy turned and continued walking down the paved road towards the villa.

"Must have been the wind." He murmured with an air of annoyance.

Lelouch's violet eyes glinted ominously in the dark as he followed behind on the left side of his mother's killer as the other boy walked on the pavement path. He may not have cared about his mother much any-more, but crippling Nunnaly was completely unforgivable.

The midget then put his hand in his ridiculously ugly red coat (probably attempting to imitate an African mystic or something) and pulled out a small chest.

The Devil raised his eyebrow at this. He frowned as he remembered that the news had said that the palace had been bombed. So, V.V. had probably brought a bomb to Marrybel's home and detonated it.

He watched in suspicion as the door opened and then he felt like he had been struck.

It was Marrybell mel Britannia or, at least, a pint-sized version of her. Well, that explained her single-minded obsession to eradicate terrorism. And also maybe the reason why she sided with him in the end instead of her mentor, Schneizel.

The second prince's bombing of Pendragon must have felt much too similar or perhaps even worse that what was supposed to happen here.

His frown deepened as the two children, only one of whom was in reality a child, talked for a moment. From what he could hear, the racist midget told her that he had a gift for her mother.

Surely, she wouldn't?

Surely, she wouldn't let him through?

He nearly growled and he did slap a palm to his forehead as she did exactly that.

"Ugh."

Where were the servants or guards? Why was an Imperial Princess opening the doors?

He rolled his eyes at the blatant stupidity. If the security was so lax, then he wouldn't have been surprised if the servants wouldn't have let him through as well.

He scowled in annoyance for a moment, but then he shrugged and decided to enter the villa as well.

* * *

Marrybell stood in the entrance hall in the Villa, looking at the back of the little boy, who had arrived as a guest with a present for her mother. She had on her a ridiculously girly looking pink dress.

What was with girls and pink?

Why must it absolutely be pink? Well, at least it was mostly only his sisters.

"You do know that's probably a bomb in that chest?" He asked helpfully. His sister, who had clearly not seen or heard him yet, responded with a loud earth-shattering shriek, which probably damaged his ear-drums.

Thanks to Marrybel, he would probably go deaf once he was old.

He looked at her snidely as the adorable little pink-haired tyke-bomb breathed rapidly, still frightened.

"H-How did you get h-here?" She asked him in trepidation, sounding not at all alike to the dangerous leader she might still become.

Lelouch smiled at her condescendingly, with a smile similar to the one Schneizel usually showed in public. That infuriating combination of kindness and patronizing attitude.

"We dead people aren't limited by such trivial things as walls and gravity." He told her and patted her head in amusement. He wondered if she would realise later that he wasn't actually translucent.

"D-Dead?" She squeaked and he was once again amused by this mini-version of his sister.

"I'm your _dead_ brother, Lelouch vi Britannia." He continued mercilessly, delighting in her rapidly paling expression.

He felt sort of like an evil uncle of sorts at the moment. There was always the cool uncle, the most popular variety and the drunk, irresponsible uncle, the most common variety. But he would be the evil uncle, the one who would either get your children to piss themselves in fright or corrupt them and turn them to the dark side.

"You may have been at my funeral." He supplied to her helpfully and she met his eyes with a little bit of fright. He smiled what was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but thanks to his inability to successfully fake it, it looked far more sinister than it was meant to be.

He could see that she had started to hyperventilate, so he just cut to the chase. Someone had watched way too much television.

"Now, if you don't want your mother and little sister to die horribly in an explosion, you'll listen to me." He instructed to her. He saw her blink in confusion as well as trepidation.

"E-Explosion?!" She asked. He glared at her.

"Haven't you been listening, little girl?" He asked her irritably and she flinched slightly at his tone of voice. He may have been only as old as her, but he was far more intimidating (as ridiculous as that was for an eleven year-old, but Charles was, by now, probably deathly afraid of crying babies, so it wasn't complete nonsense). "I told you that the little gnome has a bomb in his little box!"

"B-Bomb?" She asked weakly and he nodded.

"I can remove the bomb, but in exchange, you'll work for me." He told her regally and she blinked. "Deal?"

There was a few moments of silence. Seriously, where were the guards in this place?

"D-Deal." She told him firmly. Well, as firmly as one could expect a pink haired little girl to say it.

He snorted, but gave her a nod. Princesses were, unfortunately, almost in all cases very naïve in his experience, at least in the Imperial family, so it was no surprise that she hadn't even asked for proof or expressed any doubt.

It was sexism, in a way, as Princes were almost universally tutored on politics and such since they could form words, but females were generally only expected to look pretty, like some sort of nice ornament. Not with all Consorts, but enough.

Princes were taught to be ruthless and manipulative from an early age. Not all of them became this, but Lelouch, Schneizel and Clovis (apparently), were a good example of this. But not Princesses. Princesses simply had to smile, marry and bear children. Simply one more reason as to why Lelouch had had no particular reason of returning to Britannia with his sister.***

But, never-mind all that now, he had to keep his end of the bargain.

* * *

Two guards at the entrance bowed as Charles zi Britannia walked majestically though the door into his Imperial suit. It had been a rather annoying and difficult day so far and he wanted some peace. The lobbyists and nobles had been especially aggravating on this day and though he had made some progress regarding certain things, it was still annoying.

He had finally managed to calm down those fanatical dogs of Marianne's and had given them the rotating duty of guarding her body. It didn't actually do anything, since the body was already dead and hidden, but it might keep some of their trust and prevent them from wrecking things.

Ricardo had recently been inserted into the military hierarchy of the Britannian army with a rather high starting rank, under the name of Ricardo Vickermann. It had been covered by saying that he was a graduate from the OSI Academy. Or the Halifax School of Arms as it was actually called.

Since OSI training records were not a matter of public record and needed special permission to access, it had been easy enough to manufacture his new identity for him with that exact rank in the intelligence organisation and since high-ranking officers could sometimes transfer between the two organisations, it wasn't too much of a problem.

In other news, on the morning of his second day as Viceroy, Clovis had apparently been sighted running around his temporary house in Tokyo, while wearing a clown suit. Three guesses as to who had probably been responsible for that.

He was supremely thankful that Lelouch was in Area 11 and not in Pendragon. After all, it was better if the third prince received the brunt of Lelouch's madness.

But, as he arrived into his office, passing through his waiting room, he could unfortunately get the feeling that it would not be that simple.

On his large writing desk, which was of course beautifully and artfully decorated, he could find a single, innocent looking piece of paper.

There was no malevolence reeking of it or anything dramatic like that, but there was one simple reason as to why this fact alarmed him.

He hadn't put it there.

He sighed in resignation and approached his table and sat behind the tall office chair.

After a moment of procrastination, he finally deigned to look at the paper and with just a hint of dread and he turned it around, as the front was blank.

"Your punishment awaits." He read aloud, his face taking on an exasperated expression as he rolled his eyes.

Of course. Obviously, Lelouch had to still be pissed about the invasion. Though to be fair, even if he weren't, he probably still would have done something. Just for shits and giggles.

He glared at the ceiling, unknowing what to expect. Perhaps a piano to drop from the skies or piss to start raining from the above.

It wouldn't have surprised him. Not even slightly.

Then someone knocked.

And they knocked _three times_. Charles zi Britannia gulped, in the privacy of his office.

Did his evil son send some sort of an assassin to kill him?

"Your Majesty?" A voice asked questioningly from the other side of the door. Charles felt relief in his heart as he recognized Bismarck's voice.

"Come in." He commanded imperiously, though his voice was a little bit weaker than normal. As soon as he invited him in, he regretted it instantly, as it came to his mind that Lelouch might have found a way to imitate his voice.

Quickly, he jumped up, not feeling any of his age at that moment, and grabbed the pistol from the top drawer.

He could both hear and see the door open and he mentally steeled himself.

"Your Majesty?" His loyal Knight of One asked confusedly as he found himself facing the barrel of a gun.

The 98th Emperor blinked a few times and after a moment, he dropped the handgun on his desk, giving a sign of relief.

"Damn brat!" He cursed in irritation as his son's warning had heightened his already substantial paranoia.

"Darling, what's the matter?" Asked another voice and Charles could recognize the sound of Anya Almstreim's voice, who was currently being possessed by his wife. He looked as Lord Waldstein stepped aside and allowed the pink haired girl to walk past him.

Just as he was about to answer his wife's prompt and say something to reassure her, he felt it.

In an instant, he became violently ill and it must have shown at his face as the girl stepped closer.

"Charles?" She asked softly with a concerned expression.

Unfortunately, that was when it happened.

"Blaaargh!"

Lord Bismarck Waldstein watched in horrified fascination as, as if in slow motion, a truly majestic arc of projectile vomit spewed forth from his Lord's mouth and approached towards them.

He then felt something wet hit his face and soon after, he smelled the foul stench, which usually accompanied vomit.

There was silence for a few moments as the three simply stared at each-other, unsure if this was some surreal dream or if it was actually reality.

Anya, or rather Marianne, blinked owlishly as she looked at the normally elegant Knight of One as his face seemed to be covered in brown goo.

Bismarck himself stared shell-shocked at his Master, looking for all to see like his brain had proceeded to shut down for a moment.

The Emperor was no better as he looked at his loyal knight with a gob-smacked expression.

"Blaarg!"

Another bout of sickness struck the poor king and this time its results covered the rug in front of the two visitors.  
The smallest of the three stared dumbly at the now rather disgusting looking rug, which looked rather like it would belong in a party animal's bathroom.

Charles zi Britannia turned to his right (the entrance was exactly in front of him) and faced the large window in the room, attempting to spare his companions from his curse.

A curse that had most definitely been sent by Lelouch. This practically reeked of the 99th Emperor, pun not intended.

"Blaarg!"

Once again, he was gripped by an instant of sickness and this time he had to close his eyes as the vomit seemed to reflect from the glass pane and hit him straight on.

He grimaced and grit his teeth as he looked at his now ruined Imperial uniform. The dark purple suit was now covered with vomit and he could see bits of half digested food on his cloak.

There was, once again, a bit of silence as the other two simply looked at his back, unknowing how to proceed, while the Emperor himself glared at his reflection.

After a few minutes of peace, the group finally allowed themselves to relax a little bit.

"Are you okay now, darling?" His wife asked sweetly and Charles cautiously turned around. The possessed pinkette approached him slowly, as if afraid of startling him.

He opened his mouth to answer her.

"Blaaarg."

His wife's lips parted in shock as she was covered, head to toe, with vomit. She looked in shocked disgust at each of her hands in turn.

She looked as if she didn't know as to whether to feel horror or outrage. Charles could sympathise as he felt much the same way.

"Blaargh!"

And again, Marianne received another shipment.

Charles watched weakly as half a bite of broccoli seemed to slide down Anya's face.

* * *

Lelouch smirked in satisfaction as he finally secured V.V.'s little package. As it had been expected, it was a bomb. How utterly predictable.

Now, what to do with it?

He could just get rid of it, erase it out of existence in one way or another, but where would be the fun in that?

The great midget lord, V.V. had a few contacts among the nobility. They did not have Geass and they were not precisely his followers or anything like that, more like convenient allies for certain causes. such as the power grab and destruction of the Ashfords, the attempted systematic elimination of sources of Marianne's influence and such.

Lelouch knew of only a few of them, since after his previous ascension as Emperor, he had not really put too much effort into investigating the issue. He only looked enough to insure that there were no other propagators of Geass in the Imperial hierarchy. And since V.V., his father and the Directorate had all been destroyed, he never bothered to look deeper.

But, at the very least, he knew just about enough.

He grinned slightly as an idea came to his mind.

Using his fast travel method, enabled by his powers, he travelled to the manor of Lord Gerald Parksen, one of V.V.'s allies which were known to him.

Lord Parksen's dwelling looked far less grand than the residence of any of the Imperial Consorts and it was located outside St. Darwin Street, though not on the margins of the city.

He placed the bomb just above dear old Regald's office and the good man was right now seated behind his office table, dealing with a pile of paperwork.

How nice.

He made sure to place some invisible walls around the other inhabited rooms. Its not that he was particularly concerned about other casualties, but he didn't want things to come biting him in the ass once more, as they had unfortunately had the habit of doing in his previous life.

After that was done, he arrived back near the Villa and looked for his target, who looked rather ridiculously smug about the entire thing.

He stood in front of the gated community and seemed to savour the moment as he searched his pocket and took out what looked rather like the switch to activate the bomb.

Lelouch smiled amusedly.

Slowly, oh so very slowly, V.V.'s right index finger approached the button as a devilish smile spread slowly across his midgety face.

Then, he finally pressed it.

He looked dumbfounded as nothing seemed to happen at that moment, but after a second, something else exploded in the far distance.

Lelouch savoured the shock on his unfortunate uncle's face and he allowed a smug expression to cross his face.

He used his reality-changing power and made his eyes and hair appear to be of a different colour and he forced a thick wooden object to materialise in his right hand.

"Well, that didn't go as expected, did it?" Lelouch finally spoke, revealing himself for the first time in his uncle's presence. The man-child startled at the sound and turned around quickly, facing the demonic looking child behind him.

"V.V." Lelouch greeted in his insufferably smug tone as his now green-coloured eyes shone eerily through the darkness.

"Who are you?!" The immortal, who looked like a young chimney sweep, asked. Lelouch was somewhat amused by his apparent attempt to sound threatening.

Oh, the Emperor knew that V.V. probably had many tricks at his disposal and was not a man to be messed with - for the average person at least.

"How utterly pathetic, V.V.!" Lelouch spoke in smug amusement and he watched in joy as the 60-something brat's jaw clenched in fury. "You aren't even capable of destroying a stationary object!"

He smiled at his condescendingly.

"Maybe you should first try your hand at a smaller target, hmmm?" Lelouch asked in a supremely patronizing tone, the like one would use to talk to a young child who had gotten ahead of himself. "Maybe a doghouse or two?"

V.V.'s eye twitched upon hearing his words.

"Who are you?" He asked in a dangerously low voice or in what was supposed to sound like that but failed miserably.

Lelouch smiled kindly.  
"I am L.L." He told the brat. "But you may call me God."

He accompanied the final word with a faux benevolent looking smile, while the immortal widened his eyes in shock and for a moment there he looked like his brain had malfunctioned.

But, Lelouch did not give him any time to rest and instead approached his uncle. He smiled cruelly and raised the baseball bat in his right hand.

"It's time to repent, V.V.!"

* * *

"Blaargh!"

The Imperial Suite of His Imperial Majesty, the Imperial Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire, Charles zi Britannia, smelled rather badly at the moment.

The fifth bucket had already been filled.

"Oh, god, where is it even coming from!?" The possessed Anya Almstream shouted in a shocked voice.

Charles panted tiredly and resisted the urge to simply fall down the floor.

"That damn evil brat!" He cursed maliciously.

"Blaaaargh!"

His wife let out a stream of obscenities as he had once again managed to miss his target.

"Bismarck, bring another bucket!" The petite girl yelled commandingly.

"At once, Lady Marianne!" The foul smelling Knight of One obeyed and ran towards the exit.

"Blaargh!"

"Damn it!"

* * *

Lelouch watched the bloodied corpse of his uncle and nodded to himself in satisfaction while the little brat revived. He seemed to be in quite a bit of pain, if his weak groans were any indication.

He smiled in faked kindness as after a few moment the man-child finally managed to lift his head.

"... kill you ..." The immortal muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Lelouch asked in a fake kindly voice and motioned to his ear. "I'm afraid you'll have to speak up!"

His uncle glowered at him darkly and with great pain managed to pick himself up.

"I said." The boy spoke in a rather vicious tone. "I'll kill you!"

Then he put one of his hands into his cloak and Lelouch was startled to see him pull out a machine gun.

Lelouch's eyes widened as his uncle aimed the gun at him.

"Oh dear."

* * *

A reddish-brown haired little girl had once again managed to get a hold of her father's newspaper.

"Temporary Viceroy Duvant of Area 11 found murdered in his shower." She read aloud in a rather sceptical tone of voice.

Then she sighed.

"Jeez, he simply can't get out of his skin, can he?" She spoke aloud with an eye-roll. "Honestly."

* * *

There was a sound of gunshots in the air as V.V. chased after his equally child-like enemy.

Lelouch finally got the chance to truly test his newly trained stamina. Unfortunately, he was not at all happy with the opportunity.

He still managed to slip away from the immortal, as one of the Royal Guards accosted the man-child, attempting to arrest him.

V.V. however dealt with him rather quickly and the guardsman was left to bleed out in the moonlight upon having his body pierced with bullets.

"You can't run away from me!" V.V. yelled in a rather sinister sounding voice as he continued to chase after him.

So he had managed to sufficiently enrage the man? Most excellent.

Unfortunately for poor, poor V.V., while the streets were mostly empty, there had still been a couple of people in the vicinity.

And one of them, an elderly brown-haired woman with glasses, had proceeded to call the police.

Unfortunately, his hiding place was then discovered and Lelouch was forced to jump off the top of the tree in the Exelica avenue to avoid getting shot.

Luckily, he had managed to relearn the ability to turn intangible. The energy-based form was his default form as a dead person, so he had managed to remember how it felt.

So, as he once again materialised on the ground, he looked at the seething immortal and shook his head at him patronizingly.

V.V. then aimed his machine gun at him, which looked rather silly in the hands of a child, and attempted to shoot.

Click. Click. Click.

Lelouch gave him a rather smug look.

"What's wrong, V.V.?" He asked condescendingly. "First you fail to destroy a stationary object and now you can't even kill an eleven year-old?"

He could see a tick forming on V.V.'s forehead and the immortal scowled at him and reached back into the horrific imitation of fashion that he called a cloak, and pulled out more ammo.

He reloaded his weapon and glared as L.L. had in the meanwhile ran away.

About that time both of them could hear the sound of sirens in the distance.

Lelouch smiled. The police response here in Pendragon was usually rather fast, considering that the most important people of the Empire lived here.

He turned his head back to his unfortunate uncle and gave him a rather smug grin, which caused the immortal running after him to aim his weapon at him, preparing to fire.

At that exact moment however, two police cars drove rather super fast towards the avenue and stopped just short of entering the park.

V.V. chose that moment to fire his weapon at him and the police officers scrambled out of their vehicles.

Lelouch threw himself on the ground, while the police officers ran towards them with their rifles and shotguns, already aiming at the one who obviously appeared to be at fault.

"FREEZE!" Their commander shouted in an intimidating voice as the special police force group kept their weapons aimed at the other boy.

"Stop it now!" He repeated. "Drop your weapon and hold your hands in the air!"

One of the police officers, a rather slim looking young man helped Lelouch get up from the ground. The former Emperor made sure to look appropriately terrified and shocked.

"It's okay now, you're safe now." The officer attempted to reassure him, keeping his body between the armed immortal and the other child.

Lelouch fully activated his acting skills in that moment, gulping slightly and making sure to appear shaky enough to be believed.

He made sure to move his head to the right, looking from the side of the police officer, peaking at the other boy.

Upon meeting V.V. furious eyes, he gave a horrified yelp and hid behind the police officer again.

"Drop your weapon!" Warned the leader of the riot police force, a rather intimidating looking tall man who wore a kevlar vest above his uniform. "I won't ask again!"

Finally, in what must have seemed to be an eternity to the police officers, the child killer slowly put his weapon on the ground.

The boss nodded at this and gestured to two of the officers to arrest him.

The each grabbed one arm of the immortal and the other officers were alarmed when they started foaming at the mouth and after a few moments fell on the ground.

V.V. attempted to use this as a distraction and proceeded to run away.

"Johnson!" The commander barked, snapping his troops out of their shocked stupor.

The only female of the group, officer Johnson, took out her tranquillizer gun and with steady aim she shot at the running boy.

It hit him, but he still kept running.

"Do it again, Johnson, as many times as it takes! We have to get this killer off the streets!" The commander boomed and his subordinate nodded in response.

After two more hits, the grand midget king finally dropped to the ground and the police officers gave a collective sigh of relief.

Lelouch looked up at the officer who had attempted to shield him and at the others, who stood in front of them, and made a big show of attempting to calm his breathing.

* * *

 **AN:**

 _*Machiavelli wrote that a lord should punish his subordinates, if they give advice without being asked for it._

 _**If it sounds ridicilous, then google the raising of Chicago. As far as I know, the Tokyo Settlement is placed on a layered platforms, which raise it high above the ghettos. I highly doubt that they would demolish the entire thing if it was unnecessary. Though to be fair, I have absolutely no idea as to how either Tokyo or Pendragon are structured. We only get a look from very far away and a look from the micro level._

 _***Lelouch has a very bleak outlook on the Imperial family. Part of the reason as to why he didn't bother to return in previous life was to prevent Nunnaly being married off to the highest bidder and locked in a room somewhere, where they could use her to control him. It does not necessarily reflect the actual state of things. Princessess are not necessarily only meant to be trophy wives (Cornelia is proof of that), altrough it might be expected that way for many female members of nobility.  
_

 _V.V.'s suffering had not even truly begun. I'm rather paranoid about LL's powers now, unsure if they sound over the top and if he is overpowered in a good or a bad way. I want to have him be godlike and I don't want to put stupid or arbitrary limitations in the way as authors may tend to do for the sake of "balance" and "challenge". Like in some stories, where the MC is supposedly overpowered, but he is in reality not truly any stronger.  
_

 _As I said in my **very first** AN, at the beginning of my writing, the Startgate parts will take quite a while to reach. I still have a few things to do, before we even reach the canon timeline. A few people still have to be recruited, the V.V. "saga" has to finish, Lelouch's corporation has to be started etc. I won't reveal everything before year 2017 (or whatever it was), but some things have to be set up. Granted, it won't take that long to get some bits and pieces of SG in, but it'll still be a long way before SG becomes the predominant occupation. This is a response to a guest review. I may move this into the crossover section, or mark it complete and continue it in another part there in the future, we'll see. _

_Also, once again, no SG-1, since it'd be hard to fit that into the story, for many reasons. If you want to know the reasons, I may answer in a PM. My AN's are already freakishly long.  
_

 _I have nothing in particular against environmental organizations.  
_

 _I hope I've regained my mojo in writing as I had to reconnect with the characters a little bit. If you have any particular idea of what Marrybel's role should be, feel free to write it down. I do have my own idea, but inspiration is always welcome.  
_

 _Hope you liked the chapter._

 _Imperatia_


	12. Pots and Great Midget Kings

_Greetings,_

 _This chapter is mostly about pots. Don't even ask. I don't know how it came to that._

 _ **Which is your favourite Code Geass episode?** I'll write my choice in the AN, but I wan't to know your opinion._

 _Also, 20,5K + views, 93 reviews, 218 follows and 188 favourites. Not too shabby._

* * *

Charles zi Britannia glared at his witless son as the child grinned nearly deliriously upon hearing his words. Were they really so surprising to hear?

After contemplating the issue for a few days, the 98th Emperor had decided that, given that he'd be taking an interest in the world again, it'd probably be a good idea to improve his relationship with his children a little bit.

It wasn't that he particularly wanted to have any heart to heart talks with them or pretend to care one whif about their _feelings_. He'd just prefer that none of them killed him in the night. Although, truth be told, it would be somewhat hilarious to see their reactions when he'd show up the next day, none the worse for wear.

Like his son Lelouch's reaction. Granted, it was from a time long ago, back when his evil son had still been afraid of him, but even so, that expression on his face...

Absolutely _priceless_.

So, Charles had asked his knight for advice. And brave sir Bismarck had replied:

"Your Majesty." The Knight of One had said from his place on the sofa. "Most parents take an interest in their children's lives, talk to them and support them."

There was no glare in his eyes and the words were said in a perfectly neutral tone. Nevertheless, Charles could practically smell the judgement that was being directed at him. And the unsaid words which told him.

 _'If you did that, then maybe, just maybe, your children wouldn't have become genocidal maniacs.'_

But the Emperor ignored those words. Just because Bismarck doted on that daughter of his, didn't mean that all parents were like that. It had seemed that his knight had unrealistic delusions about parenthood.

He couldn't be bothered visiting all of those annoying one-hundred plus whiny brats. Or was it two-hundred plus? He really didn't know anymore at this point.

The consorts were irritating enough as it was on their own, what with their incessant pestering about their _wonderful_ children, _wonderful_ houses, gossiping about what kind of affairs the nobles had and the uppity commoner upstarts.

All in all, the entire thing made him want to saw his own arm off. The Pendragon clinical centre would probably be the less annoying option, especially if he was passed out. He sneered at their delusional idea that with Marianne dead, he'd pay more attention to them. As if! Marianne's presence was the only thing that kept all of that bearable. Well, that and the sex.

Nevertheless, Lord Waldstein had been helpful in making him see a possible venue where he could begin in his quest.

"Father, you really want to see my pot collection?" Odysseus asked with an almost blinding smile. Charles nearly growled aloud at the overwhelming and annoying happiness of his most boring child.

Although to be fair, the pot did suggest that he had misjudged the boy somewhat. It also explained why Odysseus was so Zen all the time. He had previously believed that his eldest child was simply secure in his position as the eldest child and therefore didn't worry too much about things.

He nodded in response to his son's query, making sure to restrain his aggression. After all, it wouldn't do to scare him off now that he had finally decided to start making _amends_.

Ughh, that word sounded so utterly annoying. He growled at the thought of having to make _amends_ to someone.

Unfortunately, dear old Odysseuss heard the sound.

"Father?" He asked worriedly, with real concern shining in his eyes, making him seem as some sort of sad brown kitten.

Charles shook his head and motioned for his son to lead. His guards had not entered with him as his firstborn's security was more than enough in this situation.

So, the witless boy left the reception hall of the villa, where he had been received by him and led his father up the stairs and into whatever room in which he kept his stash.

"Errm, Father, how come you decided to see my collection?" Odysseus asked, looking back at him with his serene blue eyes.

Whatever faults the boy had, it was rather refreshing to see someone act so casually with him. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was the first, or maybe Odysseus simply did not feel threatened by him for whatever reason, but Charles did not mind it overly much.

"I mean, I didn't think something like this would interest you." His son continued in a rather puzzled sounding voice.

The 98th Emperor looked at his son's eyes and was surprised to see that they seemed clear. There was no red in them and they did not seem unfocused.

Although Odysseus would hardly be capable of doing his duties if he was on drugs _all the time_ after all, so maybe this was his down time. His attitude could have simply transferred to normal life as well.

Or maybe he was just that good at pretending it did not affect him.

"Bismarck told me about it." Charles informed regally, giving his son a sharp look. Odysseus looked at him with a rather shocked expression. "I'm told it's a rather known fact in some circles."

He leered at his son with an almost (but not quite) teasing expression.

"Oh, my." Odysseus had the decency to blush as he stopped in the corridor for a moment. "It seems I've been found out!"

They walked for a few more moments, passing many doors of the first floor.

"But I do have quite a nice collection, if I do say so myself." Odysseus said lightly in an almost sing-song voice.

That little braggart, Charles thought to himself as he smirked at his response.

Odysseus saw this and was rather surprised to see his father adopt an expression other than displeasure, but in his typical optimistic manner he believed the best of his father. He therefore concluded that his father was happy to be in his presence.

The two royals then turned left at an intersection and after passing two doors, the prince stopped in front of the next one and turned fully in order to face his once again expressionless father.

"Ready, father?" He asked in a kind voice, which nonetheless did not sound patronizing. Odysseus was good at that sort of thing, which is why he was rather effective in dealing with other family members.

Charles blinked a bit, but gave an elegant shrug in response. He would finally get to see what kind of weed his son had. Maybe Odysseus would get him to sample some of it. It was pretty long since the last time he had some.

"Here we go!" Odysseus said calmly as he turned towards the door towards their prize.

And as his boring, no, he honestly could not call Odysseus boring anymore. Regardless, as his son pushed the double door of the room open, Charles considered that he had completely misread the child.

What he had thought was a rather mediocre, indecisive person was in truth the true genius of the Imperial Family! Instead of devising plans and dealing with the sad reality, Odysseus could simply sit there and reap the consequences!

Odysseus would become the Emperor, but Schneizel would simply run the Empire from the background. Schneizel was smart and would know what to do. The first prince simply had to listen to him. And if high pretty much all the time (and his son had obviously learnt to somehow conceal that fact), then he would be able to deal with the day-to-day reality without any annoyances!

He would get all the praise, all the power, all of the benefits and Schneizel would do all of the work for him.

He had considered Lelouch, Schneizel and himself (obviously) the geniuses of the Imperial family. However, in truth, they could but observe from afar the blinding glory of the First Prince of Britannia.

He opened his mouth, to say a word, to say _something_ to express the undisguised awe that he currently felt for Odysseus, but at that moment, his son stepped into the room, so he followed.

But, as he looked around the room, all thoughts of awe and admiration vanished from his mind, for in the large room, on top of the many dark brown drawers, laid no pot.

Only pots.

With an S at the end.

Charles normally wouldn't visibly react to most things, but the only thing he could do at that moment was face-fault.

* * *

Odysseus turned around and opened his mouth in order to announce the beginning of his tour, but stopped as he noticed that his father's face had contorted in a rather curious-looking expression which looked rather uncomplimentary on the older man's face.

The First prince being true to his nature, he completely misunderstood the Emperor's facial expression. And as Charles openly gaped at his own stupidity (for getting to the conclusion that his son was going to show him his stash), Odysseus believed that he had finally found a kindred spirit.

Most people, other members of the Imperial family as well as his personal friends, mostly though of his hobby as too mundane for a person of his status, but Odysseus wasn't dissuaded. Nevertheless, he had always hoped to find someone who shared his interest or at least found it interesting enough to follow his tour.

Charles finally recovered from his brain-fart just in time to see Odysseus spread the biggest smile he had ever seen over his face.

He didn't know why, but he suddenly started feeling nervous.

"Ready to start the tour, father?" His eldest asked in a voice practically giddy from anticipation. Only Charles' extensive experience in politics stopped him from recoiling at that moment.

Odysseus was a rather mild-mannered person, who was not all too fond of excesses (which should have been his first clue that he was _not_ in fact a junkie), so it was rather eerie to see him look like a kid in a candy shop.

Not that he'd know what a kid in a candy shop would look like.

As it was, he could only nod numbly, somewhat intimidated by his son's unusually intense manner.

"Alright, let's start here with this small pot that I got from India, originating back from when India was still part of the British Empire." Odysseus began speaking in a teacher-like voice, as they stood in front of a black and orange pot with a painted illustration of a rather retarded-looking bird on it. "This was approximately a century before the Humiliation of Edinburgh and it was made by a-"

Oh god, Charles thought. And this was only the first one.

"-economically uncertain position of the average Indian farmer did not allow for major-"

Although knowing better than to show a visible reaction, the 98th Emperor closed his eyes despairingly. Unfortunately and unknown to him, his first son was more observant than he had thought and noticed this, naturally warping and misconstruing the reaction and the reason for it in his own mind to reinforce his optimistic worldview.

As such, Odysseus came to believe that Charles was enjoying the explanation so much, that he wanted to savour it as much as he could. So, he consciously lengthened it, adding more and more "fun" facts and history into it.

"-there the Governor-General seized the majority of pottery-making shops for the purposes of-"

He had miscalculated, terribly so. He had allowed himself to believe that Odysseus was more interesting that he let on, but he actually proved himself to be even less than that.

"-such as it was, this particular piece was made for a rather affluent subject in the south-eastern part of the east administrative area of the northern part of-"

He couldn't look. Charles by now had to forcibly avert his eyes from looking at the rest of the room. He knew that since this was the first pot, there were still many more to follow. But how much more? He wasn't sure if he really wanted to actually know that.

"-the completed passage of the issue to start the clay-gathering venture right when-"

He shouldn't look. He really shouldn't.

"-after starting the provisions for the initiative in order to compete with the rising wave of new challenges, after-"

He looked.

And then he made a strangled, horrified sound from his throat upon seeing that the room was absolutely massive and completely packed with Odysseus' goddamn pots, with rows upon rows of those things. And Odysseus had just demonstrated his capability to talk endlessly about just one of them.

"I know, right?!" Odysseus asked brightly, pleased with having an attentive audience. He scratched his beard. "What they did was a horrible thing, both for the country's economy, but even more so for the local pottery makers!"

Charles had no clue as to what Odysseus was talking about or even at which point in the explanation they were.

"How did you come across it?" The Emperor asked, hoping to skip the explanation along a bit. Unfortunately, the witless child had other plans.

"Oh this?" Odysseus asked rhetorically as he faced the object of discussion. "It's a rather funny story actually. It all began ten years ago, back when I went to that vacation in Pisa-"

* * *

In another part of Pedragon, away from Odysseus' fairy tale villa stood another grand building of a very different design.

Or rather, there stood three buildings, not just one. All of three were tall white and gold skyscrapers, the middle of which was significantly taller than the other two, by at least thirty percent.

The three pompous looking buildings stood parallel to each other, with corridors or bridges connecting them to each other at the top of the smaller two.

To access these buildings, one first had to pass through a brilliant silver gate, which was at all times surrounded by intimidating men in black suits.

Upon entering through the gate, one would then be greeted by a beautiful garden. The path connecting the gate and the entrances to the three buildings widened to accommodate the large round fountain, which was located directly in front of the largest tower, precisely in the middle of the garden.

On each side of the road were beautiful flowers of various colours, but despite the outward beauty, the place maintained a rather sinister air about it.

Inside the tallest tower, which was connected to the other two at their tops, were many offices, but the largest of them all was at the top of the building.

The owner of the spacious office was a dark-haired woman, whose hair was tied in a rather severe bun, with a stern expression on her face.

The woman hummed, partly in thought and partly in annoyance as it became obvious that the bane of her existence had already started his work. A member of the imperial parliament had been assassinated. The first of many.

It annoyed her something fierce to know that a man older than her Emperor knew no such a thing as subtlety.

Sometimes, for the good of the nation, people had to be ... removed. However, it was usually far better to do it differently than simply assassinating them. When a man, especially a famous one was killed, it often started a legend. A person with many flaws suddenly became a martyr.

That was why other methods were usually preferred. A nice discreditation did a lot more than simple murder. A package of drugs found in a person's car, some nasty rumours, a nice sex scandal. The only limit of how to deal with an inconvenient annoyance in the form of a person was one's imagination and just a hint of truth. That was also one of the reasons why Zero had been so hard to with on an ideological level, since the OSI could not claim to know any inconvenient truths about him, since nobody knew anything at all.

V.V. was another type of annoyance. He was the leader of a secret organisation, similar yet different from her own. Unlike the OSI, the Directorate was something that most people knew nothing for sure about, not even of its existence. Only on the highest echelons of power was this a known fact.

Back when C.C. had been the leader of the Directorate, its operations were subtle and seamless as the ancient immortal had used her many years of experience to keep the operation hidden. Back then, it had been mostly an area where the most experimental of research was conducted, primarily of a technological and medical nature, but of others as well.

It had first assumed its current form during the first wave of colonialism, but it had existed in one form or another before that.

It had never, however, been as politically involved as now. C.C.'s leadership had been pretty hands-off and it had allowed V.V. to worm his way inside the power structure. The foolish man-boy believed himself to be smarter than everyone else before him and had started moulding the organisation into a guaranteer of Charles zi Britannia's reign.

Not that anyone had asked him to do that.

It was for that and a few other reasons, such as the assassination attempt to Empress Flora that Beatrice Holt had informed the Other Emperor about V.V.'s arrival in Pendragon.

And thankfully, her labour bore fruit as the immortal had then been captured in the streets of Pendragon while attempting to kill another small boy.

She smiled darkly, a few bangs of hair covering her eyes in darkness.

Now they only had to wait for the trial. It's conclusion was scheduled to be rather soon and the Office of Secret Intelligence had been extraordinarily _helpful_ in the preparation.

As soon as V.V. had arrived into the city, her agents had been shadowing him. And they had witnessed V.V.'s confrontation with L.L. Whatever proof was necessarily, they had provided it. Witnesses were procured, material proof was collected.

And she looked forward to seeing its end.

* * *

Lelouch smiled smugly at his counterpart across the bars, giving him a look of utter superiority.

Right now, he was in the Pendragon Youth Penitentiary, basically the nobility's prison for those under the age of 21. Most regular young mortals were forced to stay in normal prisons, but the rich and most especially the nobles were of course excluded from that rule.

So, given that the prison was both for the privileged and for the youths, it actually didn't look all that bad. It honestly kind of reminded Lelouch of his previous home in the Ashford Academy Student Council building, except it had less bars and more golden decorations.

This would not do, this would not do at all.

But for now, Lelouch merely smiled predatorily at his latest victim, the Great Midget King, V.V.

"You!" V.V. snarled at him viciously. Lelouch merely smirked at him and looked at him from down his nose.

Truthfully, he had the utmost urge to laugh at the poor peasant and mock him a little bit, but that would not really fit with his current image, now would it.

However, he still didn't have to completely abandon that thought.

Why you may ask?

Well, Lelouch was facing his unfortunate victim across the bars of his cell. The cameras were also located in such a way that it was impossible to accurately see his facial expression from that angle. And the last thing, the guard that had brought him to see the little peasant was standing directly behind him, most likely glaring at the insolent midget.

"Mr. Valtieri!" She reprimanded loudly. Lelouch imagined that she must have narrowed her eyes at that moment. "Behave yourself or I'll have you put in solitary confinement!"

He doubted she would actually do that, but perhaps he could arrange it. Oh yes, he thought as his smile widened and an idea came to his mind.

"What is _he_ doing here?!" V.V., or Valtieri as he had apparently presented himself as, demanded of the guard. It was asked in a rather harsh tone, so Lelouch made sure to visibly flinch in response to it. He had the image of an innocent young child to maintain.

"Don't worry, Mas- I mean my child!" Sayoko soothed reassuringly, correcting herself at the last moment. Right now, she stood at his right and she was pretending to be his father, with a male facial mask and a fake moustache, while dressed in a simple black suit. "He can't harm you from there."

She finished the words by giving a mocking look to the little shit. It was a good first attempt, but her technique needed some work. He'd give her some coaching afterwards.

Nevertheless, the vertically challenged blonde peasant girl still took offence and fumed at them.

"Your father is right, sweetheart." The blonde female behind him encouraged, putting a hand on his left shoulder. Lelouch's eye twitched at being called a sweetheart, but he otherwise ignored it. "Now, take your time and tell Mr. Valtieri what you've come to tell him."

The words were kind and the intent no doubt good, but the Emperor could still hear the patronizing undertone which was so commonly used when dealing with children.

Nevertheless, Lelouch still turned his head and looked at her wrinkled face, projecting uncertainty. When she gave him a stern, but reassuring nod, he made a big show of gathering his courage and faced forward with a loud.

As he did so, his face instantly transformed from uncertainty into utter evil. Behind him, the moustached Sayoko gave a grateful look to the female guard and gripped his right shoulder reassuringly. It was all to give the perfect image of a father and son. Granted, Sayoko was a woman, not a man, she had never had kids and Lelouch was an adult in a child's body who hadn't been a son in a while now, so they had absolutely no idea of how to act, but they seemed to have been pulling it off pretty well.

Granted, that _one_ guard did give them an odd look as Sayoko's moustache nearly fell off, but such things happen.

"What do you _want_?!" V.V. hissed angrily, glaring at him, which caused another glare from the guard. Lelouch merely smirked smugly.

"M-Mister V-Valtieri." The dark-haired child spoke in a most terrified sounding voice, attempting to give the impression of a shaken child who was nonetheless braving forward despite all his fears. "I-I-"

He made a big show of taking a deep breath, though the image was far different from the sound, for after making the act, Lelouch grinned at the child a rather sinister smile, with a lot of teeth.

"I don't know why you wanted to kill me." Lelouch spoke in innocent puzzlement, all the while his eyes glittered with dark intent. V.V. eyes contorted with hate and his mouth moved in the shape of a snarl. "B-But, I wanted to tell y-to tell you something."

Lelouch then took another deep shuddering breath.

"What?" The immortal asked in a quiet, hate-filled voice.

Lelouch's mouth formed another smirk and his eyes took a half-lidded, mocking look.

He savoured the short pause in anticipation, foreseeing that the reaction should be quite good.

"I ... I wanted to say that I forgive you." Lelouch finally spoke in a quiet, but firm voice. He aimed a mocking smile at the immortal as his eyes widened upon hearing the words.

The old blonde woman at his back blinked in shock at his completely sincere-sounding voice, after which she proceeded to gape at him from behind.

Sayoko offered a mock proud-look at her master and Lelouch smirked back at her.

"I'm so very proud of you, my son!" Sayoko complimented in her best attempt of a male sounding voice and the former Emperor had to resist the urge to snicker.

Since Lelouch's words sounded like the words of an innocent child, it was completely clear to the guard of who the villain in this situation was. As she did not see his smug little smiles, she could only coo at him, which the boy promptly took out of his mind to never ever remember again.

"What?" V.V. asked after a long pause, in a tone that made it obvious that he was barely keeping his calm.

Lelouch smiled at him smugly.

"I _forgive_ you." The 99th Emperor said in his most benevolent tone all the while his eyes glinted maliciously at the immortal. All the while his face mercilessly mocked the head of the Directorate.

And therefore, it was no surprise to Lelouch when V.V. went absolutely berserk in the next moment.

With a loud snarl, the immortal crashed into the iron bars with his entire body and attempted to grab his enemy from outside the bars with his hands.

Lelouch jumped back and ended on his behind as he stared "fearfully" at the immortal. Sayoko, who flinched a bit secretly rolled her eyes at his dramatics and gave him a hand

"I'll kill you!" V.V. growled loudly as desperately attempted to grab unto the one who had provoked him, even as Lelouch was being escorted far away from him by his moustached maid.

The only guard in the room took out her nightstick and stepped in front of them in a protective stance.

"Guards!" She bellowed and after a few moments two other guards ran from the doorway that led into this section of the penitentiary.

V.V. had not been alone in his cell, he had two _roommates_ as well alongside him, it's just that Lelouch had completely ignored them. After the guards entered the cell in an attempt to subdue him, the two shell-shocked kids obediently stepped deeper into the prison cell.

The two male guards grabbed the man-child and physically restrained him with a great deal of force. Two other guards arrived soon after them, one of them carrying a tranquilizer gun.

Lelouch smiled amusedly out of sight of the other adults. Obviously, thanks to a warning from the police, the prison warden took no chances.

"What could have happened to him, to invoke such anger?" Sayoko asked innocently in a mock-contemplative tone as she put a hand in front of her mouth in a visual expression of concern.

This only spurred on the little midget and he started kicking around in fury and one of the guards, the one with the dark, military style haircut yelped as the vicious little brat bit his hand. Lelouch felt a little proud of his subordinate at the moment. She was learning.

"Nasty little brat!" The guard cursed.

"And he had been so well behaved, too." The blonde female said in a rather muffled tone, not to attract more ire from the boy. "It seemed the warnings from Officer Johnson were completely justified."

She signed.

"It's obvious that mister Valtieri is a danger to himself and others." She said after a few beats as her two colleagues dragged the little shit out of the room, probably headed for an empty cell. The midget seemed to be swaying on his feet, so they might have sedated him first.

The other two delinquents (who seemed older than his uncle and had seen Lelouch's true colours) stared at him with something approaching awe. Lelouch smirked and winked at them, leaving them gaping at him.

"I apologise you had to see that." The guard apologized to them as she led them along the long corridor of the Pendragon Youth Penitentiary.

The other two remained silent. She then stopped and turned around and faced them.

"As an apology, allow me to offer you a cup of hot chocolate." She offered, looking at Lelouch.

"I don't think we should-"Sayoko began to refuse, playing her part perfectly.

"Oh come on, father, please!" Her "son" interrupted, giving her the puppy eyes and she finally "relented" (as if she would do anything else).

"Oh, alright."

He rolled his eyes at how ridiculous the entire thing was.

* * *

Charles zi Britannia, the Holy Britannian Emperor felt neither holy, nor particularly imperial at the moment. Mostly, he just felt tired.

After a ridiculous amount of time, the first prince had finally reached the last of his goddamn pots and by now Charles felt the distinct urge to destroy something. Preferably, something pot-shaped. Either that or strangle his eldest son.

Of course, having to maintain the mask of civility for the sake of public relations damage control with his own family, he could do neither of those things. Banishing Lelouch and Nunnaly had already caused waves and they were neither particularly popular nor very well known.

If he did anything, anything at all even remotely hostile to Odysseus of all people, he'd pay for it, dearly and with interest. The witless boy was just so completely guileless and harmless that no matter his justification, he would inevitably be seen as the bad guy.

So, resigned, Charles tore his mind away from all the ways he could murder his son and instead focused his attention on the last object.

His Geass would have been supremely helpful at this point; to make Odysseus believe that he had followed the tour without having to be actually present, but as he usually told others: people exist to endure such hardships.

His eye twitched at that particular phrase. It was meant for others to console themselves while going through annoyances, not for him!

"And how did you get this one?" Charles asked upon being placed in front of a rather Egyptian looking pot, if one could call it that. Truthfully, it looked rather more like a statue, as it was shaped vaguely as an Egyptian pharaoh, but with only the head and the chest-piece.

It looked rather well preserved for such an ancient thing, so Charles made sure to point that out.

"It looks almost new, as it was made yesterday." He commented and Odysseus once again got excited, causing him to almost roll his eyes.

He had learned pretty quickly that remaining silent and hoping that the witless boy would shut up already did not work.

Instead, he had to ask several questions, to lead and constrict Odysseus's topics, while strategically choosing which pieces he found "interesting" and which he did not. This allowed him to skip ahead, receiving only minor information about most of them, while at the same time having to endure horrifically long lectures on a few of them. Still, the trade-off had paid off.

However, at this point, he was not going to die _just_ from boredom, but also dehydration as the foolish child had not deigned to actually offer him anything to drink. It was actually somewhat admirable how he managed to prattle on for hours without doing so himself.

"It's actually one of the oldest pots in my collection, though truthfully, I think it's actually a burial urn." Odysseus blabbered on and Charles did roll his eyes this time. Around half of the so-called historical artefacts in the room were actually burial urns, so it's not like he was terribly surprised at this point. "It is estimated to date back to date back to a pharaoh of the early dynastic period of Ancient Egypt, which is surprising since-"

Maybe if he held his breath long enough, he could make himself pass out. Maybe. Probably. Possibly.

* * *

Bartley Asprius was in a good mood as he strolled around the streets in the temporary administrative district of the Tokyo Settlement, as the Viceroy palace was still under construction. He hummed under his breath as he thought of how everything was going along nicely.

He had never really wanted to be part of the military, though he had been good enough to get to the rank of general, but he had been pressured into joining the service, much to his chagrin. His real interest lay in the field of science and unlike war, science excited him, what with its limitless potential for new discoveries. Despite his rise in the military, he had eagerly followed some of the main scientific journals as much as he had been able, reading about the newest theories.

Unfortunately, that was the about the most that he had been able to do.

All was not lost though, Bartley though, as he walked towards his new superior's house. In some circles it became rather well known that Bartley had little to no passion for warfare, so he had been relegated to the newest imperial area, the former Republic of Japan.

It had been rather a rather embarrassing thing to his father, but he himself was rather relieved, for as long as he did not do anything excessively stupid, he could hold an occupied territory with little to no difficulty. The garrison in Area 11 was more than enough to hold the Elevens at bay.

Soon after he had received his appointment, he had struck an alliance of sorts with his new liege lord, Prince Clovis. According to His Highness, he had wanted to get away from the Imperial Court, for it was too stifling. Every error on his part, minor or large, would be seen, analyzed, dissected and gossiped about and he felt he could better pursue his ambitions away from it.

It was a natural course of events really, for between them they were the rulers of this area and they were in charge of this domain. Here, nobody could tell him that he couldn't pursue his dream. And His Highness had outright said that he had nothing against it, as long as he took care of his duties.

The rotund general passed a few soldiers, patrolling the streets and they promptly stood at attention and saluted him. He nodded approvingly as he passed them.

The building in which His Highness's government was temporarily located, was one of the larger buildings of former Japan that hadn't been damaged, though it was not particularly impressive in height. The flower gardens on both sides of the road were a rather new addition, which Clovis himself had requested.

However, almost as soon as Bartley entered into the building, he was accosted by one of his Prince's aides.

"General Bartley, sir, His Highness wishes to see you immediately." The rather flustered looking middle-aged man informed him. The general peered through his monocle at the servant with a questioning look.

"What is the matter?" He asked, but nonetheless he took the order seriously and proceeded towards Prince Clovis' office. He motioned the aide to follow him. "Is there some sort of problem?"

"I don't know, my Lord." The brown haired man admitted to him, making Bartley give him a sideways glance. "His Highness seemed rather ... unsettled and he demanded your immediate presence. He didn't let anyone else in."

From his slight pause it seemed that the word unsettled was a slight understatement.

"Not even the guards?" General Bartley asked in a rather bewildered tone. The aide shook his head.

The heftier of the two men stared ahead with a rather baffled expression. Prince Clovis was completely new to government; however he had seemed to be having no major problems so far. So what could it be that had rattled his Highness so much?

The general passed a few other doors and many of the other servants and soldiers greeted him upon passing.

After a few moments, they had reached their destination and stood in front of a rather heavy looking double door.

The aide took the lead and stepped in front of the general and gave a knock.

"Who is it?" A rather frazzled sounding voice demanded. Bartley's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Well, they would have if he _had_ one. That voice was undoubtedly Clovis'. It puzzled the large general, for he had never heard his Prince sound quite so panicked.

"I've brought general Bartley." The brown haired male answered the call.

"He may enter." His Prince answered after a few moments, sounding ever so slightly calmer. Bartley gave a glance to the aide and to his credit, the man immediately got the hint and left.

After he did so, the general immediately pushed the doors open and entered the room.

"Lock the doors." His Highness commanded and he immediately obeyed. After he did so, he turned his attention to the Prince, who sat behind his office desk in the rather spacious looking room.

The Governor-General did not look particularly good at the moment. He had a wild-eyed look to him and his normally fairly well kept hair seemed rather messy. He fiddled with his beige and brown coloured robes and even his very posture seemed to scream nervous wreck.

General Bartley made sure to project the image of calm as he stepped as softly as he could towards the Prince.

"What is the matter, your Highness?" He asked gently, making sure to remember that for all his bravado, his lord was still a young man.

The Prince took a deep shuddering breath.

"Bartley." He started in a voice of obviously faked calm. The general nearly gulped at the anticipation in the air. "What evidence has been found next to the body of Lord Duvant?"

Momentarily confused, the highest ranking soldier of Area 11 paused for a moment and obviously it was a moment too long.

In an instant, Clovis rose from his desk as his chair tumbled down behind him.

"TELL ME, BARTLEY!" He thundered, making his subordinate flinch at the sudden noise.

Seeing his reaction, the prince then slumped almost bonelessly and gripped the desk with both of his hands.

"I am ... sorry." Clovis apologised, leaving the general a bit stunned at how desperate his voice sounded. Then he rose his head and looked his nominal subordinate in his eyes. " _Please_ , tell me."

He sounded like he was pleading with him. Bartley held his gaze for a moment and then he sighed.

"A piece of cloth, which has been confirmed to come from a Britannian military uniform." The general informed his master and Clovis impatiently motioned him to continue.

Bartley therefore complied.

"There was a symbol of a black handprint on the piece of cloth." He continued hesitantly, looking as the Viceroy closed his eyes in an attempt to calm himself.

There was a moment of silence.

Clovis then straightened out and pulled a piece of A4 paper. He looked at it in puzzlement as it was empty, but then his master turned it around.

A black hand.

His insides froze at the sight and he nearly gulped. He understood perfectly now as to why Clovis had been so panicked.

Underneath the hand were a few words, but before he could read it-

"We are watching." Clovis said in a shuddering voice and Bartley knew that that had to be the text beneath the symbol.

Bartley watched in frozen horror as the Prince dropped the sheet on the desk. Clovis then picked up the chair he had crashed earlier and sat down wearily.

After a moment of getting to his senses, Bartley followed suit, not waiting for approval, as the both of them were rather unnerved right now.

The office chair groaned under his weight.

"We'll have to step up our security, my lord." The general said after a while and the prince simply nodded gloomily. "We'll have to make sure that we have an account of who goes in and out, so anything ... outward can be prevented."

Clovis sighed.

"What did Duvant do?" He asked after a moment. Bartley seemed puzzled.

"My lord?" He asked. Clovis rolled his eyes.

"Why did they ... you know, kill him?" The Governor General asked.

"I don't know." Bartley answered honestly. He had been bewildered by that very fact himself. "He was rather old, so he wasn't any competition for any of the ambitious younger military officers. He was a respected military officer with no major known enemies."

He hesitated for a moment.

"He _was_ in charge of the military occupation of Area 11 before your arrival, my lord. So that might be a possible reason." He admitted uneasily, "But the Elevens couldn't possibly have exacted their revenge on him. The security around him was too tight and all of the elevens were banished from the centre in preparation for the construction."

Clovis nodded, accepting the explanation. However after a few moments-

"An anti-imperialist." He breathed in realization. Clovis looked at him. "But, I was under the impression that the public supported the invasion. Even the anti-war factions had quieted down."

"What do you think they want from us?" Clovis asked quietly. "I took no part in the invasion and surely they must realise that I can't actually release the area?"

Bartley grimaced at the thought of that being demanded of them. It wasn't even certain if the Prime Minister had that ability. That was a bit of a grey area. The only one who really had that kind of power was the Emperor.

"Perhaps they took offence at the way that Duvant handled the occupation? I am told it was rather violent." Bartley offered and Clovis immediately grabbed that option with both hands.

"Yes, yes." The Viceroy nodded in response. "Perhaps if we took care not to disturb the Eleven populations too much?"

Bartley sighed.

"It is not the Empire's policy to negotiate with terrorists, Your Highness." He reminded his social superior. Clovis grimaced in response to that.

"I know, I know." The prince answered. "Still, it couldn't hurt?

The last part was questioning and all Bartley could do in response was to shrug.

* * *

After another painfully long monologue of why that particular pot was supposed to interest him, Charles staggered away from his son's accursed house, resolved to never ever return there if at all possible. Even after finishing with that, Odysseus had "entertained" him by showing him a pottery wheel and only after that did he offer him anything to drink.

Worst of all, he did not even give him anything good. He sneered at the thought of the light beer that the stupid boy had given him and it did not amuse him. Not one bit. After enduring all that, he most definitely deserved something more. Carlsberg, at the very least.

The two guards that had accompanied to it were eyeing him warily as he seemed to be both tired and also in a foul mood, which was never a good combination.

Maybe he still had some of that absinthe stashed away somewhere. He signed as he entered into his black limousine and nearly fell in his seat as the car drove off.

"Your Majesty." A loud voice greeted and the Emperor startled and looked around wildly. The source of the sound was straight in front of him however and he gritted his teeth once he spotted his dastardly Knight of One on the small TV screen.

"Bismarck." He said with an annoyed glare with promised untold pain to his subordinate. The man had the audacity to look confused at the tone.

"Your Majesty?" He asked in complete puzzlement and Charles' glare deepened. "What did I do?"

"You didn't tell me that Odysseus had a connection of _literal_ pots!" The 98th Emperor growled and Bismarck looked at him in bewilderment. Charles stared at him with a withering glare.

"I am pretty sure that that was precisely what I told you." The Knight answered dubiously after a few moments of silence.

"You said _pot collection_!" He glowered at his unfortunate subordinate.

They looked at each other for a moment.

"Yes." The Knight of One confirmed very slowly. "Pot collection as in ... _a collection of pots._ "

"Well, I thought he had marijuana!" Charles zi Britannia bellowed at his idiotic knight that obviously needed to be replaced. Bismarck's eyes widened and he stared at him in complete astonishment.

"How could you have _possibly_ come to _that_ conclusion, Your Majesty?" The Knight blinked at him shocked, staring at him as if he had a few screws loose.

An ugly blush spread over the face of the Holy Britannian Emperor.

And as the two stayed in silence, Charles knew that Lelouch had better never learn about this. It would instantly start the jokes about senility again. He hated those jokes with a passion.

Lord Waldstein coughed awkwardly.

Charles sighed and rolled his eyes. He looked at his Knight once again.

"Anyway, Your Majesty, I wanted to inform you that your brother has been apparently captured by the police." Bismarck spoke, sounding rather dubious of the entire thing. Charles blinked at the weird piece of information.

"I find that _very_ unlikely." The Emperor admitted, now distracted from his former embarrassment.

"Apparently, a young boy by the name of Mr. _Kingsley_ was involved." Bismarck answered, emphasizing the surname.

"Oh." Charles zi Britannia blinked. That explained as to why they had managed it. The evil brat was nothing if not devious.

"I know you are not in the habit of following the local news, so it's not surprising you haven't learned of it sooner." Bismarck continued, ignoring his lord's interruption. "I myself only learned because Dorothea mentioned it. She was quite surprised we didn't know."

The 98th Emperor frowned.

"Soon, it'll be time for the end of his trial and things are not looking good for him." Bismarck said, repeating what he had heard. "Are we going to help him, my lord?"

Charles thought it over, but after a few moments, a smirk spread over his mouth.

"Not yet." He answered with a cunning smile. "We'll let the little gnome get a little taste of his punishment first."

He had lost all fondness for his brother after V.V. had lied to him for the second time.

* * *

Odysseus entered into one of the chambers of the Imperial palace and it was exceedingly obvious that he was in a really good mood.

The place itself was rather beautiful; it was sort of like a supremely well decorated living room placed on high platform, with several sofas placed in an unfinished rectangle around a coffee table. A very small indoor garden surrounded the platform, which contained colourful flowers as well as palm trees.

There were a number of his family members at the very exotic looking place, but Odysseus' eyes immediately sought out Guinevere.

As he made his way towards two chairs, one which contained Guinevere (the other was empty), his eldest little sister raised her head.

She almost opened her mouth, but paused, taking in his overjoyed expression. She blinked.

"Well, what happened to you Odysseus?" She asked in her usual regal tone, raising her head and giving him a bored look which did not fool him in the slightest. "You look like you've just been on a really successful date."

He grinned in response and sat down next to her, making her sniff slightly in irritation. She had always been a fan of propriety and it annoyed her when he hadn't asked permission to join her.

"You'll never believe what just happened." He declared to her joyously. She raised her eyebrow in a rather aristocratic way, as was her custom. Odysseus had often teased her that this was what her made her so intimidating to her potential suitors.

"Well, out with it!" She snapped irritably after he just kept on grinning. "I don't have all day!"

Both of them knew that this was completely false. Though the First Princess did have her duties, which mostly dealt with negotiating with the wealthy industrialists of Britannia (and other countries), the representatives adjusted to her schedule and not the other way around. And Guinevere liked her schedule nice and clear as much as possible.

He grinned smugly, an unusual sight of him, eliciting furrowed brows from his sister.

"Father has just taken my tour." Odysseus boasted to her and her lips parted in a bit of a shock.

"You're kidding." She answered, narrowing her eyes at him, but Odysseus shook his head with a bit of a smile.

"Nope!" He grinned at her. "He was a rather attentive listener too, asking a lot of questions!"

She simply stared at him, unable to relate the image of her displeased father to a man listening to her brother ramble on about pots.

"He didn't even seem bothered by the length of it!" Odysseus said triumphantly. "I've tried to say several times that we should have a break, but he seemed so into it that he didn't react to it at _all_!"

He smiled as his sister gawked at him, well as much as her training would allow her. Still, her green eyes were noticeably wider than usual.

"I can't ... _believe_ it." Guinevere breathed out in shock. "I've always said that no-one would last the whole tour, but of all people ... _father_?"

She turned her wide eyes to him. He simply smiled at her.

She shook her head.

"What is he playing at?" She spoke after a moment, narrowing her eyes. Odysseus frowned in a bit of confusion.

"What do you mean?" He asked naively and she rolled her eyes at him.

"You can't make me believe that father would suddenly start taking an interest in us." She told him in an emotionless tone. "Remember, this is the man that had banished our siblings for saying the wrong words to him."

He opened his mouth to object to her, but she was quicker.

"It led to their _deaths_ , Odysseus." She interrupted icily, giving him a look. "I've never liked that harridan's little spawns, but even I would have been outraged if my mother had been killed."

"I'm sure father just did what he thought was best." Odysseus protested weakly.

"Yes, but best for _whom_?" She asked, looking at him sideways from the corner of her eye. "If he could do that to a _so-called_ favoured child, one of the ones with "the largest potential", surely he could do it to any one of us?"

Odysseus dropped his head. He had not wanted to get to such a morose topic. It seemed nobody seemed to share his faith in father, at least as far as he had asked. Well, apart from Euphemia.

"What's going on with you?" He finally asked after a few moments. His sister sniffed disdainfully, but accepted the change in topic.

"Well, my mother's roof is still being repaired." She answered after a slight pause. Her lips took on an amused shape. "The guards are still panicky."

"Is it true, that with the piano?" He asked her.

"I really wouldn't know." She told him. "At that time I was at a hairstylist with..."

* * *

 **AN:**

 _Yes, pots. And Charles thought it was weed. You'd have to ask Charlie and Ody as to how I thought about that, it was a bit silly, I'll admit.  
_

 _My favourite episode in Code Geass is episode 20 in R1. It's really the place where everything is as it should be, IMHO. I mean, Nina meets Euphemia, Suzaku and Lelouch are working together against a common enemy and at the end both Euphemia and Suzaku seemed to have become even more motivated to fix Britannia than before. Also, Cornelia seems more exasperated at Zero than anything else. Plus, that scene where Lelouch annouces the creation of a new, independent nation is just completely badass. _

_Btw, reviews are not showing at this moment. I can see them via mail (since nobody seems to be a comment essayist they aren't even shortened) and the count has been updated, but I can't actually access them at FFnet, so I might not reply straight away. They should show up eventually. Hopefully._

 _Which episode in Code Geass (both R1 and R2) is your own favourite? Did you like the way my Odysseus and Guinevere are presented? Does anyone recognize where V.V.'s surname is from? Any other reference?_

 _Please review._

 _Imperatia_


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